CC 2006 05 08
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
MAY 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:25 p.m.. The meeting was opened with the
Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mayor Furlong, Councilman Lundquist, Councilman
Peterson and Councilman Labatt
COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT:
Councilwoman Tjornhom
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Justin Miller, Kate Aanenson, Paul
Oehme, Todd Hoffman, Lori Haak, and Don Asleson
PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS:
Jennifer Riggs 9064 Briarglen Road, Eden Prairie
Mitchell Faber 7387 Ontario Boulevard, Eden Prairie
Debbie Larson Planning Commission
Debbie Lloyd 7302 Laredo Drive
Janet Paulsen 7305 Laredo Drive
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
None.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded to
approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s
recommendations:
a. Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated April 24, 2006
-City Council Verbatim & Summary Minutes dated April 24, 2006
-Board of Review & Equalization Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated April 24, 2006
Receive Commission Minutes
-Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated April 18, 2006
-Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim & Summary Minutes dated March 28, 2006
Resolution #2006-32:
b. 2006 Street Improvement Project 06-01: Call Assessment
Hearing.
c. Hidden Creek Meadows: Approve Development Contract Assignment.
Resolution #2006-33:
d. 2005 MUSA Project 06-05: Approve Change Order to
Engineering Contract.
City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
e. Approval of Temporary On-Sale Liquor License, Softball Tournament at Lake Ann Park,
June 24 & 25, Chanhassen Lions Club.
h. Approval of Extension to Variance 05-10, 9015 Lake Riley Boulevard, Laura Cooper.
Resolution #2006-34:
i. Approval of Moving the Polling Location for Precinct 3 from
Discovery United Methodist Church to St. Hubert Church.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
1(G). CALL FOR SALE, 2006 G.O. IMPROVEMENT BONDS.
Councilman Lundquist: Mr. Gerhardt, on those G.O. bonds, is that part of our, I’ll call it the loan
program from the State? It’s part of all that work.
Todd Gerhardt: No, this is for the east/west collector road and sewer and water.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay, so that’s the part of it of that that is not associated with the State
program. That’s just the 2005 east/west?
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. There’s also.
Councilman Lundquist: As far as that, so the assessments from that are those benefiting property
owners there and this is our portion.
Todd Gerhardt: That’s correct.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay, thank you. That’s all I have Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Is there a motion to approve?
Councilman Lundquist: Motion to approve.
Mayor Furlong: Is there a second?
Councilman Peterson: Second.
Resolution #2006-35: Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to
approve the Call for Sale of 2006 G.O. Improvement Bonds. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:STATE OF THE AGENCY REPORT, SOUTHWEST
METRO TRANSIT, LEN SIMICH.
Mayor Furlong: If you’d like to address an issue, please come to the podium. State your name
and address and we’ll be happy to listen to your comments. If no one this evening, we do offer
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
visitor presentations at each meeting so anybody is welcomed to come at that time. Move now to
our next item on our agenda which is presentation by Len Simich from Southwest Metro Transit.
Good evening Len.
Len Simich: Good evening Mayor, members of the council. Pleasure for me to be here this
evening. It’s been a few years I think since I’ve been over here to kind of give an update on
what we’re doing at Southwest Metro and an overview of the agency. As I understand it, the
slide show that I have here this evening has been provided in your packet, so I’m just going to
kind of cover some of the high points and then give some time for you to be able to answer, or
ask any questions since the next couple years are going to be big for Southwest Metro again in
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the City of Chanhassen. Okay, first and foremost, this is our 20 anniversary of the agency,
Southwest Metro Transit. Again starting in 1986. Seen a lot of changes. A lot of growth. Both
not only in communities that we serve but in the agency itself, and we really look forward to
serving the 3 communities and potentially expanding in the future. Later on this year we are
going to be doing something formal in terms of the celebration, which you all will be invited to,
and we have a few other plans in store in terms of changes as we move forward, so we look
forward to that. Here we have a slide of our existing commission. As you may recognize some
of the members. The two Chanhassen members, our Chair Councilman Peterson as well as
Vicky Ernst. And each community that we serve, Chanhassen, Chaska and Eden Prairie has two
representatives on the commission, as well as one rider rep that is selected by the commission.
Some of the highlights for 2005. Again we had another growth year. We had a 10% increase in
our overall ridership. This falls on the heels of 2004 where we had a 20% increase so 30% in the
last 2 years is phenomenal growth. And our biggest issues have been really trying to keep up
with that demand, both in terms of our capital. In terms of our vehicles as well as the park and
ride stalls that a majority of our customers use. Last year we topped over the 800,000 mark in
terms of our total trips. We also provided over 42,000 rides to Minnesota State Fair. Again
another record for us. The last thing I want to note on this slide is some of the performance
targets. We set a number of performance targets for the overall agency, and that kind of gives us
that report card on how we’re doing and something we’re very proud of is the, our on time
performance where we exceeded 99% in terms of our overall agency on time performance, and
our road calls per mile. That is when we’re...to fetch a mechanic out to actually do a road call
because as a vehicle is traveling in service. Last year we were over 1 road call for 16,000 miles.
Industry standards about 1 for 5,000, so we’re very pleased on both of the efforts of our
maintenance staff, and in terms of preventive maintenance that they do on a daily basis. As well
as and I will admit we have been very successful at bringing in a lot of new equipment, so that
has helped us overall with the liability, but again that’s a major factor because if you’re not
reliable, not on time, we’re not going to be able to attract as many people to our system as we’d
hoped. Staying with 2005, the shot up there is, the top shot on the right is our 1947 silver sided
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bus. Some of you may have seen this at the 4 of July celebration. I think we actually won an
award in one of the categories when it was entered. It was pretty much the exterior that had been
completed. Now we’re totally complete. It’s been brought back to the time period of 1947. It
was on display last year at the Minnesota State Fair, and anywhere it goes it gets rave reviews, so
this is kind of our flag ship. We use it, not only in parades but it will get out on service from
time to time as well as we use it for a lot of other promotional effects. A couple other things.
You may have heard that we were very successful in obtaining some federal, as well as state
funding over the past year. A lot of that state funding is, and general funding will be going right
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
here in Chanhassen with the expansion at Market Street. We’ll be putting our parking ramp at
that location, as well as our new development along Highway 212 and 101, which I’m sure
you’ll have some more questions about. We also secured additional state funding for that 101
development, and we secured some additional property in Chanhassen really as a fall back, not
knowing what was going to happen at Market Street so we have additional 5 acres down
towards, and across from Prince’s studio basically. In terms of new vehicles, again to meet up
with that demand, we purchased 9 new vehicles and they’ll be going into service here shortly.
Speaking a little bit about our project on 101. We will be back in front of this body here in June
seeking our final approvals. We’re going this week back to the neighborhood, rolling out our
plan. The Planning Commission will hear it the following week, and again we’ll be back in front
of the City Council. We’re very excited about the plan. It’s a total mixed use, transit oriented
development. Has townhomes. Some retail and of course our parking ramp and station. We
think it’s going to be a very nice addition to the city. We’re also doing something similar in the
city of Chaska, so you can see our system, we’re trying to really gear itself for future growth.
Some of the current projects that we’re working on. We’re doing a lot of, in the planning phases,
both with the city of Eden Prairie as well as Carver County in terms of a comprehensive plan.
We’re doing our own transit development plan and really trying to gauge 5, 10, 15 years out,
what the demand, what the needs are going to be and really try to mirror our funding and our
service to meet that demand. Finally one of the other things that we gauge or kind of are our
report card is our customer satisfaction and we do an annual survey of all of our riders. We get a
very high response rate, and last year we had over 97% customer satisfaction rating, which again
we were very pleased with but in this industry it’s very unprecedented to get something that
high. Any time you’re dealing in transit and public services, there’s a lot of things that can go
wrong. Luckily we have been staying ahead of the curve. We put a lot of time and effort into
our customer service. Our reliability factors and so forth, and here’s where it really pays off for
us. So that kind of concludes. I did also want to point out, I do believe our annual report was
sent out to each of you and we’ll talk about the 20 years and the bottom there’s kind of a running
total of some of the highlights. I won’t go through that now but be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for Mr. Simich.
Councilman Lundquist: Len when you look across either or Minnesota the region or nation, do
you have any peer groups that are in similar circumstances? You know growing communities
like Eden Prairie, Chaska, Chanhassen that you can compare yourself to on ridership increases or
any of that? Is there anybody out there in that situation?
Len Simich: There are a number. Both here, metro wide. There are some other similar type
services. Maple Grove. The Minnesota Valley Transit. They operate similar type service,
primarily express to downtown markets and that is our core. Downtown and the University of
Minnesota, which is our fastest growing market. If you go across the country, a lot of suburban
areas have similar service, or starting similar services. How we rank out is very favorable. 2004
we were awarded the National System of the Year primarily because, and they look at all these
measurements and we ranked higher than any other suburban transit provider out there. Besides
customer satisfaction, road calls per mile and so forth, overall growth of your system. The
strength financially of your systems and so forth. So we have done very well.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Councilman Lundquist: So now that Peterson’s the Chair, that will stay.
Councilman Peterson: I was in 2004.
Len Simich: He was the Chair then as well.
Councilman Peterson: Nice transition because I have one thing to add that Len touched on a
little bit and we’ve got 10% growth. Obviously you can rationalize that by saying gas prices and
road congestion is certainly some of that, but I think that 90% plus is Len and his staff and the
contracting drivers make that 97% customer satisfaction. I mean it’s a nice experience to ride
downtown on their buses, and that’s what makes this organization successful is because his team
really works well with the riders and makes it a positive experience so absolutely.
Mayor Furlong: Well I think because of that, you know we’ve got 2 park and ride. One park
and ride right now. You’re looking at adding another one in the 101/212 area. And how many, I
know the plans are coming through soon you said, but how many additional spaces will be there
at this point are you anticipating?
Len Simich: Well Mayor, members of the council. At 101 and 212 we will go up to 800. Now
that might be a two phase process. We’re hopeful that we’re able to go right off the bat with all
800 but it may be a two phase process. And then we’re looking at possibly another 500 stalls
here at the Market location.
Mayor Furlong: And right now we’ve got 120, and that’s all we’re using, correct? Is the 120 in
the Market Street area. For the record.
Len Simich: For the record, but.
Mayor Furlong: It’s obvious the demand is there, or you’re seeing the demand is there for more
spaces than what we have.
Len Simich: It is, and today we actually met with Clayton Johnson at Bloomberg Development
Corporation, and we are going to be expanding on the service yet this year at that location. Part
of the problem we’ve got in Chanhassen is the amount of service. We always hear we want
more service from the residents. The problem is we have no place to put them, so come fall,
that’s when we start seeing the build with the new riders, we will have some additional space.
Probably another 100 at that location. While they’ll be temporary until we can get a ramp built,
it will give us some ability to expand here.
Mayor Furlong: Do you track the homes of your riders? Do you track where they originate from
or where they live? The ridership information.
Len Simich: Not so much the whole but the intersection location. The closest intersection and
that’s through our annual survey and we get that information, yes.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Todd Gerhardt: Len, in the last month have you seen an increase above the 10% for ridership
with the price of gas? Has that increased more than your average 10%?
Len Simich: We have seen an increase and it’s what’s more surprising, this is the time of year
when you start to see the decrease overall in ridership. We’re not seeing a decrease. We’re
actually still seeing an increase, so we’re probably up this year alone about 13% over the
timeframe we were last year. And to give you an example, I went by Market today and that was
full and so…to really judge but I went by the Super Target in Chaska, and had to take a double
take because we have grown incredibly at that location so yeah, overall we are seeing that. As
well as our Eden Prairie. There are days at our Eden Prairie facility that there’s no spaces
available. So it’s a good problem to have. Nonetheless it is a problem, but it’s a good problem
to have.
Todd Gerhardt: Thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Well to…Councilman Peterson’s comments, we appreciate your efforts and
those of your staff. They’re obviously doing a great job based upon the customer service and
we’re very grateful for it.
Len Simich: Well thank you. Pleasure to serve.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
PUBLIC HEARING ON LOTUS LAKE AUTOMATIC SLOW-NO WAKE
ORDINANCE.
Public Present:
Name Address
Doug Bitney 6645 Horseshoe Curve
Shelly Strohmaier 80 Sandy Hook Road
Steve Donen 7341 Frontier Trail
Greg Fletcher 7616 South Shore Drive
Bob Ayotte 6213 Cascade Pass
Dave Howe 400 Santa Fe Trail
Patti & Dave Preves 106 Sandy Hook Road
Bill Kirkvold 201 Frontier Court
Mayor Furlong: Task force was formed a short period ago and they’ve had an opportunity to
meet and this is the report back to the council so, we’ll start with the staff report and then receive
comments from the public. Good evening.
Don Asleson: Thank you Mr. Mayor and council members. This evening we’d like to update
you on efforts of the Lotus Lake slow-no wake task force, as well as city staff effort resulting in
the automatic slow-no wake ordinance proposal for Lotus Lake. Staff is requesting solicit public
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
input prior to making a determination on the proposed ordinance. So first off what is slow-no
wake. If you want, we do have print out’s if you’d prefer those of this slide show. But it’s
basically operating the watercraft at a minimum speed to maintain steerage and avoiding the
creation of wake. So why amend the ordinance? Well as a result of the heavy rain events on
thrdth
Labor Day weekend, September 6 and October 3. On the September 6 event we had about 6
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inches and the October 3 we had about over 4 inches. Council had enacted an emergency
recreation for the Labor Day rain event and instructed staff to develop an automatic ordinance on
Lotus Lake during times of high water. Mainly because of the emergency resolution process this
council had to go through to get those ordinances in place. Heighten awareness on lake levels on
Lotus Lake. It’s a good time right now to address these issues. So why amend it? I think we
talked about that a little bit but the automatic ordinance will eliminate the need to interpret when
a slow-no wake condition is needed on Lotus Lake. The emergency elevation was defined. It
will also eliminate the emergency council meetings needed to enact a slow-no wake resolution
on the lake. It will also improve the response time for slow-no wake enactment and create a
standard method for notifications so that lake users can check to see if there is a slow-no wake on
the lake. The task force was appointed by council with 7 members, lake users, geographically
selected around the lake. The geographic selection was used to generate input from around the
lake from riparian users and non-riparian users, and task force members all agreed to attend 3
meetings to determine the slow-no wake ordinance. During the 3 meetings, the first meeting was
basically an introduction to get them up to date with the details of the lake as far as the lake
levels and some background information. The second was kind of the details. They worked
through the details of what the proposed ordinance would be. And last, they kind of came to
conclusion on a recommendation and a summary for council, which I believe is Attachment #2 in
your packet. Additionally during the meetings they reviewed other lakes in the metro using
slow-no wake surface zoning. Considered one big thing for the task force was the recreational
use of Lotus Lake, and it was very important for them to understand the consequences of any sort
of ordinance amendment for the recreational user of Lotus Lake. Additionally they identified the
residents do have the need to protect the shoreline for ordinary water level fluctuations, but the
city should take an opportunity to protect the shoreline for extreme water level fluctuations
during high water events. One thing that was very interesting is the second meeting the task
force came together. The first meeting I didn’t sense too much consensus but by the second
meeting, 15 minutes into it we had complete consensus on the proposed ordinances and what
levels that would go after that, and the duration and the notification on it so that was very
encouraging.
Councilman Lundquist: Ayotte strong armed them before they got there.
Don Asleson: Rationale. Just kind of the rationale for the task force and staff as well both
wakes during times of high water may decrease public safety. Not only for dock sections
floating off and creating hazards but when we get those extreme rain events it does wash logs or
twigs or other debris out into the lake, and users of the lake you know, wake boarding or skiing
could potentially hit that debris. That could also increase property damage. With the increase in
water level, boats rise up and they can get thrust against their moorings and damage that or
structures that are near the lake can get damaged. Increased shoreland erosion. Anything above
the protected kind of ordinary fluctuation of water level does increase the susceptibility for
shoreland erosion. And last but not least, impact to public infrastructure. One thing that we
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
were concerned about is the sanitary sewer around the lake, because if the water gets too high, it
does increase the inflow and infiltration into the sanitary sewer system. We do take preventative
measures to ensure we minimize the amount of inflow and infiltration into the sanitary sewer.
Sand bags and I…speaking with our utilities superintendent, he said that they put like rubber
gaskets underneath the manhole lid just to try to minimize on that. As far as task force results.
They came up with an automatic slow-no wake ordinance proposed with the following details.
Zoned automatic slow-no wake above 896.8 above sea level. Restrictions will remain in place
until the water level drops below 896.8 for 3 consecutive days. And then the standard methods
of notification were the signs at the access. Clean Water Hotline. City web page. Cable channel
8. And e-mail to association representatives and other known interested individuals. So
basically how does this ordinance work. Well, if a rain event will push the level above 896.8,
staff has verified the level at the gauge to make sure that it is above 896.8. Slow no wake will be
declared. Public will be notified. Three consecutive days after that level comes back down
below 896.8, the restriction will be removed. As soon as it does get enacted, Carver County
Sheriff’s Department will be notified, and will enforce that ordinance. Penalty for violation.
Even though last year I know there was a lot of warnings but the penalty is considered a
misdemeanor punishable up to 90 days in jail and up to and/or $1,000 fine. Just to kind of give
you an idea of where we were at last year with our water levels. This is kind of a historic water
level. On the far left hand side is around 1970 I believe. And the red level is, the red line that
goes across the top is 896.8, so that would represent where that automatic slow-no wake
ordinance would be enacted. The blue line is the ordinary high water level, and that’s about 6
inches, well it is 6 inches below the 896.8. 2001 to 2005, if you take a look at that, there’s only
actually 3 rain events that actually pushed it up into a no-wake condition. I believe it’s ’91 and
then two events in 2005. And then just to give you a better idea of what happened in 2005, we
did get a lot of rain on Labor Day weekend. That’s that first peak, and then the second peak is
rdrd
actually October 3. The reason there’s not so many peaks, or points on the October 3 one is
that we didn’t take as many monitoring points because we didn’t enact an emergency resolution,
so there wasn’t a great need to monitor that as it came back down. In addition to the
recommendation for the automatic ordinance, the task force did want the council to at least
consider a graduated fine schedule and ask the city attorney to maybe work with the county
prosecutor to develop a graduated fine schedule for violation of the slow-no wake. Also, they
also would like to see, the task force reconvene if there is any proposed change to the ordinance
in the future. In addition there was a concern that maybe the staff should send out some signs via
e-mail for the associations to post at their beachlot, and I think you know as far as notifying with
the e-mail, they can definitely do that. Okay, so upon approval of the ordinance, the DNR will
basically have the last say. They have up to 120 days for approval and once the ordinance is
approved by the DNR, we can publish it. I have heard from the contact down at the DNR that it
shouldn’t take 120 days. But realistically that’s the amount of time they have to review so it
could take as long as that, so finally staff recommends the City Council solicit public comment
during the public hearing on the proposed ordinance amendment, and recommend the ordinance
as written in the staff report and I’d be more than happy to answer any questions that you have.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff?
Councilman Lundquist: Don, have you had, you or Lori or anyone on staff had any discussions
with Sergeant Olson or anyone on the sheriff’s department regarding enforcement?
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Don Asleson: Yes we did. We actually included Sergeant Olson in one of our task force
meetings so the task force members and staff were able to talk to him about the slow-no wake
ordinance.
Councilman Lundquist: And his response and/or level of commitment to that was?
Don Asleson: He’s basically what they said was, they will dedicate as much service as they can
to Lotus Lake when it’s in slow-no wake. They do have other lakes in the county but if they
notice that there’s violations that residents can call the Carver County Sheriff and they’ll
dispatch the boat as soon as possible.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions. You mentioned the DNR. You’ve been working with them
already?
Don Asleson: Yes we have.
Mayor Furlong: And informing them of the process that we’re going through.
Don Asleson: Yeah, we’ve actually had them take a look at the draft ordinance prior to bringing
it here so they’ve seen it. They’ve made kind of some tweaks to it and.
Mayor Furlong: Are those tweaks included in what we’re looking at?
Don Asleson: They’re included in what you’re looking at right now so I don’t see any hang up’s
at this point. They do want to see the public comment though.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Very good. Any other questions for staff at this time? If not, there
may be others that come up during public comment. Alright, very good. Thank you. At this
point I’ll open up the public hearing and invite interested parties to address the council on this
matter. Please come to the podium. State your name and address. Well with the public
comment we got when we were appointing the task force, one would think that somebody would
be interested in commenting. Mrs. Lloyd, how are you tonight?
Debbie Lloyd: I’m great, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Good.
Debbie Lloyd: Debbie Lloyd, 7302 Laredo Drive. I’m a member of Sunrise Hills Association. I
attended a recent Lotus Lake Association meeting. A newly formed organization which the City,
and I probably have the wrong name. Clean Water Organization. Lotus Lake. Anyway, I think
the committee worked really hard to come up with something that was agreeable both to
lakeshore owners and non-lakeshore owners. I think it sounds very reasonable and I just wanted
to voice the publicly to be here on record so that’s what I’m saying, thank you.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Other comments. Nobody? If not then we’ll close the
public hearing and bring it back to council for discussion. Seeing nobody, we’ll bring it back to
council for discussion then. Thoughts and comments.
Councilman Peterson: Seems well thought out. I would certainly support it and move ahead.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Other thoughts.
Councilman Lundquist: Glad that we had a mix of, as Ms. Lloyd stated, users, or lakeshore
owners and non as well and that there was consensus among that is a good thing and that we also
used the science behind that as something that seems reasonable. So again I think it’s definitely
required a good outcome of that task force so comfortable moving ahead.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Councilman Labatt.
Councilman Labatt: Yeah, I like it. I’m not going to be opposed to it. I think just from my
background, I think enforcement’s going to be an issue when the Carver County Water Patrol’s
in Lake Waconia and there’s a boat zipping around. Getting that person off Waconia can be a
problem. But I guess I would hope that there’s be enough signs and revocation that there
wouldn’t be that problem. I quickly read through the ordinance. Was there an exemption for
emergency personnel water traffic?
Don Asleson: Yeah, I do believe that there is an exemption for that. Listed in the DNR rules.
Councilman Labatt: But what about in our ordinance? I mean if we have a water emergency on
there and we’ve launched the Chanhassen Fire Department Rescue Boat and they zip across the
lake, I don’t want somebody calling up and saying well there’s a Chanhassen Fire Boat out there.
Why are they ignoring the ordinance?
Todd Gerhardt: Roger’s checking it. I think there’s something in there.
Mayor Furlong: Well let’s make sure. Any other thoughts right now or comments while they’re
looking at that?
Councilman Labatt: No.
Mayor Furlong: Then we’ll come back to you.
Councilman Labatt: No, I think my question was, I’ve heard from staff was, you know how are
we going to get the word out? I mean if have to enact this on Saturday morning after a huge
rainfall like last year, how do we get the word out, and I think staff has pretty much covered that
with the exception of launching a balloon and dropping leaflets. I mean I guess the way you
know, well I can see it sometime that some person, whether they didn’t read the sign or didn’t
get the leaflet dropped on them by a balloon and gets a ticket for it and says well I wasn’t told.
You know ignorance is not an excuse for… I think we’ve done our due diligence to try to get the
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
word out and I’m really happy with what staff and the committee came up with here. So I think
just one thing with the exemption and.
Mayor Furlong: And I guess maybe while they’re looking at that, and to that point too. First of
all I’m going to start out by saying that, after the first meeting I think it was mentioned tonight
by the staff, I received some e-mails and calls from residents wondering how this task force was
ever going to come to any conclusion and whether or not they represented the interests of all the
residents involved. And I replied, and I said you’ve got to give them a chance. They’ve only
met once. I’m not a process for process sake person but I’m a process, I do support a process to
come to a good conclusion. I think here, this is a very good conclusion in that I think it is
reasonable. It’s fair. It’s balanced between the property owners and the users of the lake as a
key component that we were looking at, and I think there were perhaps, I don’t want to speak for
them but perhaps some of the people even on the task force who were here at the meeting when
the task force was appointed, they were very concerned that any agreement could come to place.
So this is a good level. It should create a no wake situation on an exception basis, not a rule,
which is what I believe is correct. And yet I think it’s something that is fair and just for
everybody. I think, I know that, I understand that the city has tried to do this in the past with
limited success, and after receiving a number of e-mails last September, while the emergency no
wake situation was in place with a variety of recommendations from people on when it should
come off. What everybody concurred with is that there should be some point at which a no wake
goes on, and if we can take advantage of the opportunity, which I think we’ve done here, of last
fall’s events to bring people together to come up with a conclusion and consensus, we’ve seen
that here tonight. There are a couple things that I’d like to suggest to the council that I think
addresses the first additional recommendation on the task force and that is this graduated fine
issue. When I saw that somebody violating the no wake could get up to $1,000 day fine and 90
days in jail, that to me seems a little out of place with what on the street would be called a
speeding ticket. And so one of the things that I guess, as I understand it, most of our ordinances
are misdemeanors by their nature. As I understand a petty misdemeanor, which would be more
akin to a speeding ticket, would provide up to, is it $500, is that right Mr. Gerhardt?
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: No potential jail time, but also that there are other laws in place that if there is
an egregious situation, such as, what I’m, in my humble relationship is comparing a speeding
ticket to a reckless driving. Clearly that’s a different situation. The penalties are more severe and
there’s nothing by creating this as a petty misdemeanor that prohibits the authorities from giving
out other citations on the same event. And to the extent that they are warranted and that avoids
us having to start including in our ordinance what I could refer to as sentencing guidelines here.
Bring it down to a petty misdemeanor by ordinance that would give also the courts the idea of
what we’re looking for here. We’re looking for, to control behavior and I think this will do it. I
think it will do it reasonably but also I think that a petty misdemeanor be more akin to, as I said,
a speeding ticket on a road which going fast in a no wake by definition is speeding on the lake.
And probably more in line with what the task force is saying is that, you know the first violation
could be up to $1,000 and 90 days in jail just seems to be a disconnect, and I think that might be
a good way to accomplish what this first recommendation of the task force. I do also agree that
reconvening the task force at some point in the future would be a very effective tool. I
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
understand that that’s also come tonight as a recommendation on our Lake Susan task force over
a period of time, and I guess not that I want to clarify but to suggest staff and to the council is
that maybe after 2 or 3 times that this ordinance has been triggered, if we go forward and pass it
tonight, which I assume we may, that we reconvene the task force to review how it’s working,
rather than just leaving it in there. I wouldn’t want to do it after the first event because it’s going
to be new to everybody, but after a couple or three, and not a magic number but I think
reasonable would say hey, let’s get back and look at it and make sure it’s working the way we
want it to. So I would recommend that and that we proceed with that which again is one of the
recommendations so, those would be my thoughts. But the one thing in terms of the change is, is
stating it succinctly and Mr. Knutson I’ll ask you how do we do that? If the council’s in
agreement to move it to a petty misdemeanor from a violation standpoint, if there is agreement
on that.
Roger Knutson: Then you just add a section to the draft ordinance saying violation of this
ordinance is a petty misdemeanor.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: My only question to that is Tom is, a barking dog violation is a
misdemeanor by virtue of the 90 days in jail or up to $1,000 fine. I think we would just for
consistency sake leave all violations the same for city ordinance violations, of which this would
be, and then the fine schedule can be set accordingly by the city.
Mayor Furlong: And that’s fine. I’m just, that part of it I just, I struggle with…
Councilman Labatt: …struggle a little bit too but I mean you know, you’re not going to get a
judge in the metro area county to slap a $1,000 fine on a boater. I mean you can go out and get a
drunk boating arrest and get a $300 fine. You know…your generic boiler plate a misdemeanor
sentence is punishable up to $1,000 fine.
Mayor Furlong: And that’s fine. I’m trying to recognize the recommendation coming from the
task force here and I think that would be one way to try to accomplish it versus going with a
graduated scale here. So I’m interested in other thoughts. I would not be opposed to keeping it
the same or not separating it but those are my thoughts. Other comments or you’re comfortable
going forward Councilman Peterson?
Councilman Peterson: Yeah, as it is. I mean I think to Steve’s point, there’s a bunch of them
that need to be changed and that’d be another night perhaps.
Mayor Furlong: Well maybe we should do that, is review because if a barking dog is, you know
it’s a level of egregiousness.
Councilman Labatt: False alarm ordinance. You know the more and more we get, the more and
more you…and I think that the graduated schedule, I mean just like a regular speeding ticket in
some counties, the faster you go the more you pay. So I mean the more times you’re caught,
fine. We’ll just give you a fine the first time and double it the next time, however.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: And that’s fine. I guess I’m looking to maybe Councilman Peterson’s point that
there may be others in our ordinance that we want to look at there. That was the one that, and
even the task force clearly by their statement, struggled with a little bit and I was looking for a
possible solution there. But I could certainly go with leaving it as it is.
Councilman Lundquist: I’m with you. I think that the intent is not to make it you know 90 days
in jail or anything but the other thing, but I’m with Steve. I think leave it up to the courts for
consistency at that point, and I’m hoping that because it’s only happened 3 times in the last 15
years, that there will be another…that we won’t have to have it so.
Mayor Furlong: So I think that’s everybody’s hope. The fact that it did happen, and it happened
twice last year I think is, I’m glad we’re moving forward now and I’m glad we brought people
together to get this done. Are you comfortable on your emergency vehicle?
Councilman Labatt: No, I was asking Roger. We have to add it.
Roger Knutson: We should have an exemption for law enforcement personnel.
Councilman Lundquist: Law enforcement or emergency.
Roger Knutson: Watercraft utilized by resource management, emergency and enforcement
personnel acting in the performance of their assigned duties shall be exempt from the provision
of this ordinance.
Councilman Lundquist: What he said.
Todd Gerhardt: It’s in the packet.
Mayor Furlong: Is it in there?
Roger Knutson: Yeah, but it should be added to the ordinance.
Mayor Furlong: It should be, okay.
Councilman Labatt: The old one predated the new one. What about Lori, excuse me. As far as
signage at the access. I mean a guy coming in from Hopkins that’s going to go crappie fishing,
is there signage going to be pretty clear and visible right there?
Lori Haak: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: We did that last year, did we not? When it in place last year.
Lori Haak; Yes we did.
Mayor Furlong: The sign went up.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Lori Haak: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: So and I think as you said Councilman Labatt in terms of notifying through e-
mail and providing the associations should get notices up on their own lots as well and it sounds
like they were going to do that so. So that’s good.
Councilman Lundquist: One last point Mr. Mayor. I’d just like to thank those 7 members of the
community who volunteered their time and, to come together and to do that so that’s appreciated.
Mayor Furlong: Absolutely, thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: We’ll send out a letter. With the Mayor’s signature.
Mayor Furlong: Any other thoughts or comments? If not, is there a motion to approve the
recommended ordinance with the addition of the language exempting law enforcement and
emergency vehicles that will be added in.
Councilman Lundquist: So moved.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Moved and seconded. Any discussion on that motion?
Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilman Labatt seconded that the City Council approve
the ordinance amendment including the statement, watercraft utilized by resource
management, emergency and enforcement personnel acting in the performance of their
assigned duties shall be exempt from the provision of this ordinance, and amend City Code
to read as follows:
SECTION 1: Section 6-49 of the City Code, City of Chanhassen, Minnesota, is hereby amended
to include the changes listed in bold to read as follows:
“Sec. 6-49. Slow--No wake areas.
(1)
No person shall operate a watercraft in any marked slow--no wake areas in excess of slow--
no wake speed. Slow--no wake areas shall be marked in accordance with the applicable
regulations of the state department of natural resources. The location and boundaries of each
slow--no wake area established are shown on that certain map entitled Water Surface Use Zoning
Map of Chanhassen dated July 11, 1983, on file in the city hall. The map and all notations,
references and data thereon are hereby incorporated by reference into this article and shall have
the same force and effect as if fully set forth and described herein.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
(2)
Emergency slow-no wake areas may be established by resolution of the city council and shall
be marked in accordance with the appropriate regulations of the state department of natural
resources and posted at all public accesses.
(3) Special Slow-No Wake Restrictions
(a) Lotus Lake:
All persons shall operate watercraft at a slow-no wake speed on Lotus Lake whenever
the water elevation exceeds the 100-year predicted level for Lotus Lake of 896.8 MSL
as set forth in the 1994 Surface Water Management Plan. The slow-no wake surface
zoning shall remain in place until the water drops below the 100-year predicted level of
896.8 MSL for 3 consecutive days. Upon the placement of a slow-no wake restriction,
notice will be given:
1.On a sign posted at the public access.
2.On the City of Chanhassen Web Page.
3.On the City of Chanhassen Clean Water Hotline.
4.On the Community Cable Access Channel.
5.In an e-mail format to known representatives on Lotus Lake.
6.To the Carver County Sheriffs Department.
To the public by other appropriate means determined by Council. ”
7.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
GREEN GARDENS, 850 FLYING CLOUD DRIVE, APPLICANT KEITH WERNER:
REQUEST FOR AN AMENDMENT TO INTERIM USE PERMIT 96-2 FOR
EXPANSION OF THE WHOESALE/RETAIL NURSERY USE.
Public Present:
Name Address
Skip Cook Eden Prairie
Keith Werner 850 Flying Cloud Drive
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, council. This item before you tonight is to address changes
to an interim use permit that was granted in 1996. The nursery itself has changed hands a couple
times. In the fall of 2004 and spring of 2005 staff found that they’re in non-compliance with the
interim use permit and therefore have worked to try to get it back into compliance. And the
applicant has requested some changes to that interim use permit. The Planning Commission did
th
hold a public hearing on April 18 to review the proposal and did recommend approval 5-0 for
the amendment. And the staff is recommending approval of the changes to the interim use that’s
found on page 9 and 11. I’d like to go through the project and the…interim use. On your staff
report on page 2 it talks about the applicable regulations. The interim use follows the conditional
use standards and there is standards for wholesale nursery and the intent… The intent of that is
pre-existing retail nurseries. Again the history of this, this goes back a number of years. This
goes back to 1972 when it was kind of a farmers market and has changed kind of the use and the
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
characteristic of that site. But the intent of the interim use is to establish the fact that they are
non-conforming and provide reasonable use of the property. While we recognize that over time
that it will go away, so the difference between a conditional use and interim use is that there’s a
definite end, and we believe that at the time that sewer and water’s down there, that this use will
go away because as proposed, the nursery itself doesn’t meet architectural or screening, outdoor
storage and the like. So therefore the interim does allow for the use of the property. On this
colorful site plan before you, we’ve identified in the staff report, and I’m not going to go through
a lot of that. Just briefly the changes. In the interim use analysis on page 3, we identified the
four areas as shown on the map…and those area really a future storage shed, supplementary
office. In the area 2, more display garden and storage bins. Again people come and get rocks
and stones and that sort of thing. Mulch. Future greenhouse. Future parking and that’s where
most the changes have occurred. Again a concern too was with the grading and the change in
that area, and then area 3 which is the most northerly portion would be again some hard goods
storage, it’d be rock storage bins. …today that there is some backing of trucks backing in this
way, which we don’t want to have happen. Any loading should be on site and we want to put
that as a condition of approval that they use appropriate circulation, that they’re not backing up.
Councilman Labatt: Did you say we need to add that?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, we should. That they need to come in so they’re not blocking 101. That
they shouldn’t be doing any loading or storage in that area, and just the flat safety of the traffic
flow for that area.
Mayor Furlong: Do you have language that you want to add or will when we get to that?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. On section 20, I’m on page 7. Section 20-383. We did go through the
interim use standards in there. Again providing the drop dead date. Again a date that we put on
there is at the time that we’re down there for sewer and water would be the termination of this
site itself.
Councilman Labatt: What number is it?
Kate Aanenson: Page 7. Yeah the conditions that start there. Requirements that they need, so
the actual date under the findings would be the termination of the date…sewer and water so even
though we’re down, if we’ve identified the staging area, just because that comes in doesn’t
necessarily mean that sewer would be available then so at the time that we come down with
sewer and water. And then the findings that we’ve committed are also discussed because there
are some non-conforming signs originally on this site. So with that we’re, on page 9 we do
recommend the conditions of approval, that the City Council, it says Planning Commission…
City Council. Then I would add condition number 32 that would say, all loading or unloading
should be done on site and not blocking either Highway 212 or 101.
Mayor Furlong: I guess to that point, because this was a, one of the things that I observed when I
was driving on 212 the other day was a semi trailer driving down 101 south. When the light
turned green on 212 so the people on 101 south could go, he pulled in forward into the motel and
then jockeyed a few times backing up onto the, into the property without, I don’t know that he
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
was necessarily loading or unloading to do that. He was just maneuvering his vehicle off the
state road so that it would be easier for him once he got onto the property and so I guess, they
need to have access onto the property, but I think all vehicle maneuvering should be done on the
property as well because it occurred while the light was green and everybody coming south on
101 had to wait through at least 1 extra signal change. Fortunately it was in mid-morning but if
that had happened at 4:30 at night, it would have caused a lot of problems so, is this going to
cover it or is there language we could, all the loading or unloading actually needs to be done on
site but I think you know that there’s, how do we deal with that jockeying on the state highway
and obstructing traffic while they maneuver, position their vehicle? They need to have access.
Can they just go straight in?
Kate Aanenson: Right, that’s what I’m saying, right. Exactly.
Mayor Furlong: We need them to go straight into the site and whether it’s off 101 or 212.
Kate Aanenson: And all the turn movements.
Mayor Furlong: And then maneuver on the property.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, all turn movements to either load or unload should be on site. Is that
adequate? All turn movements for loading or unloading storage should be accommodated on site
and not on the state highways.
Roger Knutson: I think that’s as best you can do.
Mayor Furlong: …from an observation standpoint. And you know it’s a state road so I mean
they need to be able to come on and off, and they’re going to have deliveries and that’s their
business and that’s fine.
Kate Aanenson: But I think to your point, if it’s operation or setting up that they can’t do that
way, then they need to make some changes on site, and that would be kind of the tie back, that
nexus that if it’s, the way it’s orientated right now requires that they back in, then they need to
change something on site. So that doesn’t occur, and that would be our tie back.
Mayor Furlong: To avoid the obstructions?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Yep. Okay. So what was your recommendation then on that addition? All
turning movements.
Kate Aanenson: All vehicles turning…or turning movements be completed on site. And then I
don’t know if it’s clear just to say to, if internal changes need to be made.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Councilman Labatt: Excuse me Kate. Would it be easier…to say you know truck routes. I
mean they tell the truckers that are coming into the business where to unload or load. This is the
road you have to take to avoid it. Can we just.
Kate Aanenson: I would think some of it’s probably communication issue and also…
Councilman Labatt: …designate a certain entrance. Where you go off of 212 as a truck route
because I mean could you.
Kate Aanenson: I don’t know if that’s the problem. I think it’s more just trying to get better
access to, when there’s a lot of stuff stored out there.
Mayor Furlong: Do you think it’s only that they need their truckers to come in off 212 instead of
101, they should put up a sign that says don’t come in off 101. Come in off 212. I think what
we need to do, we can’t restrict their access of the road, unless they can tell us that it has, that it
can’t comply.
Councilman Labatt: Well I don’t know…public safety issue. Let’s just say if there’s a truck
maneuvering back and forth…
Mayor Furlong: Absolutely. It was an obstruction.
Councilman Labatt: Very slick road and all of a sudden a truck’s coming down 101 and wham.
Mayor Furlong: And my point.
Kate Aanenson: …property is that, he saw that truck and he didn’t believe that was part of their
business operations.
Skip Cook: When I saw, I witnessed the exact same thing and the truck did not, I was totally
shocked…blocking the lanes. It was ridiculous but he ended up going back north on 101.
Jockeying around right on the state property right across from the entrance on 101…
Mayor Furlong: So it may be a non-issue. He said he wasn’t delivering anything?
Skip Cook: …but that was an issue with the truck not knowing where he was going. He was not
coming to the nursery but, so yeah. If the DOT was there like normal, he would have been…
Kate Aanenson: But I think to your point that it probably still was good that we just observed
that the site is set up in such a manner that it doesn’t force instances to occur. It appeared like it
probably is, but we can check on that too.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, good.
Todd Gerhardt: You should also know that that is a traffic violation from the state level or city
level or county level so.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, that would be a misdemeanor…
Councilman Labatt: Well, is he creating a wake?
Mayor Furlong: He was not creating a wake. He wasn’t go fast enough to do that. Okay, any
other questions for staff at this point? The applicant is here. Any comments you’d like to
address to the council? You don’t have to but certainly want to give you the opportunity. Okay.
Any questions for the applicant? Seeing none, with that I’ll open up discussion at the council
level. It seems fairly straight forward with the added condition 32. Sounds like, it certainly
meets their needs as well so any other discussion? If not is there a motion to approve?
Councilman Labatt: Move approval on the staff recommendation subject to conditions 1 through
32. 32 as the amendment.
Mayor Furlong: Recommended by staff this evening?
Councilman Labatt: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: With regards to turning movements on the site.
Councilman Lundquist: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion?
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded that the City Council
approve Interim Use Permit #96-2 allowing the expansion of the wholesale/retail nursery use
on property located in the Agricultural Estate (A-2) District at 850 Flying Cloud Drive, as
shown on the plans prepared by Jeff Zeitler of Green Gardens dated March 31, 2006, subject
to the following conditions:
1.The applicant shall submit vehicular use area measurements.
2.The applicant shall install landscape islands or peninsulas based on the overall area of the
vehicular use area.
3.The applicant shall install overstory trees in the parking area in quantities as required by City
Code.
4.Bufferyard plantings will be required along Highway 212 to screen the parking lot.
5.Bufferyard plantings may be required in front of the stone sales area and mulch bins
depending on the visibility of these areas from Highway 212.
6.Landscaping, storage and disposal activities shall be prohibited within 50 feet of the drainage
way which runs along the northwest corner of the property.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
7.The accumulation of nursery waste shall not be permitted on site.
8.Drainage in the Highway 212 right-of-way and Highway 101 right-of-way shall not be
modified or changed as part of the IUP amendment activities.
9.If active grading, earthwork or landscaping activity exceeds 1 acre of the site leaving
exposed soils, the applicant will need to obtain an NPDES permit as determined by the
Pollution Control Agency.
10.If a NPDES permit is not needed, the applicant shall be responsible for controlling erosion
and sediment from their property. Upon inspection, if erosion becomes a problem on site, the
City may require the applicant to make corrections and stabilize soil.
11.All drive lanes shall be surfaced with a Class V gravel base or similar material to minimize
erosion potential.
12.Applicant must fill out the aboveground storage tank installation permit application.
13.An aboveground storage tank installation permit must be issued by the Chanhassen Fire
Marshal before any type of work on tanks and dispensing equipment is started.
14.Acceptance test on the aboveground storage tank must be conducted by the installer and
witnessed by the Chanhassen Fire Marshal.
15.Building permits must be obtained for proposed structures and all must comply with the
Minnesota State Building Code.
16.Construction of the third storage shed shall be of compatible design, materials and color to those
of the existing storage sheds.
17.The applicant will be allowed to utilize the trailer through November 30, 2006. The trailer must
be permanently removed from the property no later than December 1, 2006.
18.Use of the temporary office trailer shall cease within 30 days following the issuance of
certificate of occupancy for the third storage shed.
19.Area 4 shall not be used for the storage of equipment, materials or vehicles associated with
the nursery. Storage or display of nursery stock is permitted in Area 4.
20.A 50-foot setback shall be maintained from all property lines for the storage of materials,
growing ranges and parking, except that the existing display area adjacent to Highway 212 and
Highway 101 (southeast corner of the property) may continue to be used for these purposes. No
materials or displays shall be placed within the right-of-way or obstruct the view of the traveling
public. The storage of materials over three (3) feet in height shall be prohibited in the site
triangle of Highway 101 and 212.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
21.Hours of operation shall be from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Monday through Friday and 8:00 a.m.
to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The sale of seasonal merchandise consisting of pumpkin
and Christmas tree sales shall be permitted from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
22.Exterior light sources shall be shielded.
23.No outside speaker system shall be allowed.
24.The use shall terminate one year following the availability of public sewer and water service.
An annual review shall be made to determine compliance with the attached conditions.
25.The applicant shall work with staff to develop signage that will comply with city ordinances.
26.Stop signs shall be erected at the intersections of the driveways at Highways 101 and 212.
27.No equipment or vehicles shall be stored on the site with the exception of employee vehicles
and equipment necessary for the operation of the nursery.
28.No outside storage of equipment and materials unrelated to the nursery business shall be
permitted.
29.Storage structures shall not be used for retail purposes. A portion of the proposed storage
structure may be allocated as office space to service wholesale customers. Storage of equipment
and materials is permitted in these buildings.
30.No grading of the property shall be permitted unless a grading permit is obtained from the City.
31.The applicant shall work with MnDOT in examining the possibility of relocating the access
point on TH 212 further to the west and providing a deceleration lane along westbound TH 212
in conjunction with the Highway 212 improvements.
32. All loading or unloading should be done on site and not blocking either Highway 212 or 101.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
THE PRESERVE, 1630 LYMAN BOULEVARD, APPLICANT THE PEMTOM LAND
COMPANY: REQUEST FOR REZONING FROM A2 TO PUD-R; SUBDIVISION OF
APPROXIMATELY 80 ACRES INTO 156 SINGLE FAMILY CLUSTER LOTS; SITE
PLAN REVIEW; CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE
BLUFF CREEK OVERLAY DISTRICT AND ALTERATIONS WITHIN THE FLOOD
PLAIN; WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT FOR CROSSING BLUFF CREEK; AND
VARIANCES.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Public Present:
Name Address
Jeff Fox 5270 Howards Point Road
Rick Dorsey 1551 Lyman Boulevard
Marcy Hillerman 7699 Anagram Drive, Eden Prairie
Gayle & Lois Degler 1630 Lyman Boulevard
Justin Larson Westwood Professional Services
Allan Klugman Westwood Professional Services
Cory Meyer Westwood Professional Services
Dan Herbst 7640 Crimson Bay
Dan Cook 7697 Anagram Drive, Eden Prairie
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. The applicant, Pemtom is requesting to rezone a property that’s
been zoned A2 to PUD-R. For the approval of 155 lots and 15 outlots. They also approved a
conditional use permit to work within the Bluff Creek Overlay District and alterations of the
th
flood plain. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on this project on April 18, 2006
and did recommend 5-0 to approve the plat. There’s quite a few things approved in the
attachment, but what I’d first like to do is, instead of going back through some of the comments
is to talk about the zone. How the zone got picked and how we came to the staff recommending
approval of this project. Subject site. Just south of Lyman on the Degler property. The entire
property as stated in the staff report, approximately 80 acres. And looking at the entire 2005
MUSA, and what has been approved to date. I did include in your packet a summary of what we
put in the AUAR and what’s been built to date. Just kind of to kind of tie that all back together,
so we anticipated approximately 1,500 units and if this project was to be approved with 155,
we’d be at approximately 800 units. So there was still over 700 units left available for the
development of the two remaining parcels. The other parcels in the area that are not guided
residential would be the Degler property and then included in the AUAR was some of the
Laurent property. So in looking at this and looking at the whole 2005, the goal from the
beginning was to try to preserve the creek corridor. That was the overriding planning principle
was to preserve all this green space, and do something different that we hadn’t used in the past in
the city to preserve creek space. So looking at the land uses that, other developments that had
come in already and trying to come up with something, a different style of housing. The
developer went with the smaller lot. So with that, the challenge then was to, how to make that
work and you know we looked at twin homes. Fourplexes and tried to accommodate something
different on the site. Ended up with this single family lot size. And it’s different application.
Outlined in your staff report, just take a minute to take a look at, if it’s possible, because it is
zoned low density, medium density. Low density. There are several zoning options that could
be applied to the property. One being the 15,000 square foot lot. A very traditional subdivision
lot. PUD-R single family and that we have also in the city. 15,000 square foot average. Excuse
me, 15,000 square foot average. Yeah, average. 11,000 would be the smallest. We have some
subdivisions that use that…most recently seen on the Sever Peterson property. Again that’s a
9,000 square foot single family home, or 72 for twin. R-4 which would allow the 15,000 square
foot single family or a 10,000 for twin. The R-8 which would be a medium density, 7,500 square
foot twin home or 5,000 for a townhouse, so that would be another appropriate zoning. Or the
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
PUD detached, which is what this project came where there’s no minimum. So if you look at the
average lot size that we put in your staff report, just under 8,000. The smallest lot being in there
just shy of 7,000. You see that they’re really far within the range of some of these other medium
density zoning, so again you’ve got that choice. So again trying to find a different type of
housing product meeting a different nitch if you look through the comprehensive plan, in looking
at the different zoning options and now I’m on page 3 of the staff report. Talking about the
zoning. What they propose on development compatible with the surrounding land uses. Again
this property is similarly zoned, or excuse me, similarly guided with the property immediately to
the west and the southwest. This would be the different zoning. The buffer, transition buffer
you have for the industrial is the creek bed itself and that expanse across the creek. So with that,
you know when we looked at providing again diversity for housing and, again I’m on the top of
page 4 now just talking about the fact that we’re trying to preserve that creek corridor. Rather
than letting the lots go right up to the creek floor, we backed those off. Provided additional
buffers outside the overlay district and putting that forward. So with that, this is actually north. I
don’t know if that’s more helpful. With that we worked on putting together a plan, and there’s
actually a lot of iterations to this plan in itself. One in the fact that because it’s a PUD-R, and
now I’m on page 5 of the staff report going through. Put in here all the design standards or the
requirements or code for 0, or excuse me. For a small lot, subdivision. Now this again is the
first application. While we’ve had this in our code, the 1991 code was approved, we haven’t
applied this yet. We have used, and I included in your packet, out on North Bay, which was a
Rottlund project. The lot sizes and in there they averaged 3,500 and the difference between this
project and the North Bay project is, those units don’t really have a yard. It’s all common space.
They have the property that their house sits on but there’s not the common space. Then the next
iteration of that was Walnut Grove. Again another Rottlund project. That’s been well received,
where they did the two different sizes with smaller lots. Again those are a little bit bigger but
again they don’t have individual lots where the house sits on the, the property rights fit along the
house. There’s not the, everything else is really common. So this takes it to a different level
where we have a smaller lot but you actually have a back yard, and talk about that. So with this
project you have a 2 car, with the option for a third stacked in, and a side yard, but you have a
bigger lot. You do have your own space to put additions on. Now in the PUD itself, and again
I’m on the bottom of page 5 for the setbacks or the setbacks from Lyman. Also from the eastern
property line and then you’ve got a letter that says it meets a 100 foot, these are similarly guided
properties, so the setback only needs to be 50 feet, but they’re the same ultimate guiding. Not
current zoning, so it does meet city code. So then the question was…taken from your comments
on the RLM and what was 5, excuse me, yeah the 5 and 10 to get the setbacks. They’ve also
taken the corner lots and provided an opportunity for the side loaded garage. So there is room
for expansion on these lots which is different than the ones in the Rottlund project where you
probably wouldn’t see any additions…opportunity for some porch or deck or even an
opportunity for a swing set or those sort of things in your back yard. There’s enough impervious
surface. Again with this type of lot capitalizes on this project is that it takes the opportunity of
the impervious surface outside of the Bluff Creek Overlay zone so you can balance that across
the whole project, so that’s the application of the PUD and what we said when we did the Bluff
Creek Overlay District is we would apply that as a tool, so what that does is allow for the smaller
lots to use those areas that are left in common open space to increase the impervious. So with
the setbacks, the only other challenge is on the front yard and the side yard to get that look from
the street, and the street profile itself, there are public streets just to get the access via the
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collector boulevard. We hopefully we’re going to bid here shortly, and then this is a public street
so this would be a typical 60 foot right-of-way and then this is also a public street. The
sidewalks will go along both sides of the public street and they’re looping. All these sidewalks
that are shown on this one, I think there’s a little bit of excess sidewalk. We do have an
improved modified sidewalk plan. We thought it was a little too intense. One of the other issues
that came up at the Planning Commission and I know we discussed earlier at a work session on
another topic is, when you have public space and you have a private space, excuse me. A private
street getting access through a public trail, so we want to make sure that we work that out with
the association, the covenants and that sort of thing so we do allow, especially for the high
school, that there’s an opportunity if people want to go through that neighborhood to provide that
access.
Mayor Furlong: Could you clarify that again? That issue. Where it…
Kate Aanenson: Well really, we’re going to have a structure coming across the creek.
Mayor Furlong: A trail crossing?
Kate Aanenson: A trail crossing, right. So if you wanted to get somewhere else on the site and
this, and some of this is coming through a portion onto a private street, that these would be
public trails to allow people to get through to public access, so we’re working through that in
their covenants that we’ll review and we want to make sure that that’s something that wouldn’t
be amended in the covenants. It’d be a condition of approval. That it’s just be in the
homeowners association covenants that they would ultimately someday in the future
eliminate…cluster that.
Mayor Furlong: So are those part of the conditions of approval or is it part of the…
Kate Aanenson: Yes. It’s part of the conditions.
Mayor Furlong: You have it in the conditions. One of the conditions.
Kate Aanenson: …there’s a couple of little…like that and we want to make sure that we
understand what the homeowner’s association covenants and Planning Commission had a good
discussion on and that’s fencing. You know one of the things where you’ve got those small lots,
that we don’t have a lot of fencing…what does that do? Certainly when you have a private lot,
maybe have a dog, there may be opportunities for that so that’s something we want to give some
careful consideration to too and so they’re working on that. How they want to address that.
Whether they’re more opaque type fencing or especially when you…just important to look at the
fencing and certainly people that have to walk…take that opportunity also to see that. So those
are some of the things that we’re looking at. As I mentioned the public streets are all 60 feet
right-of-way with a 32 foot pavement width of 31. The private streets will actually be a 40 foot
right-of-way and 28 feet paved. This is again the first application of this type. Use of a private
street at this width. It does allow on street parking. Again that was one of the considerations of
working with the developer. We worked the city engineer and myself worked a lot of different
zones trying to figure a looping system where we had a public street that was a continuous loop
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but that gives us in there for snow plowing and it gives a way in, a way out. And with that you
go off the private streets, which would allow at that width. And then we also looked at spacing,
kind of city wide we looked at the spacing. The feel. The closeness and the feel. Certainly
they’re going to be closer side by side but we looked at the other projects that we had in the city
that have those narrow lot lines and we wanted to get a sense from the street, so one of the
discussions that we had is that we wanted to have, again there is now with the PUD it’s kind of
contractual. We have gone as close as 20. We didn’t want to do that. We’re actually at 25 feet
from the garage. That was a requirement they all be 20 feet. The only place there’d be 20 is if
it’s a corner lot. The other corner where you don’t have a garage would be 20. But that gives
plenty of depth for parking and then also you would have… As I indicated a third car garage…
So with that, some of the things that we worked out. There is a trail. The park commission did
review this project. One of the things that they recommended was that this play area be larger
and there were two lots shown on there. The other thing that we’re talking about is, there’s 5 lots
up in this area, so it’s really topographically separated from the plat where they have some nice
views. It’s really not part of the association. Kind of a different feel. This road also goes into
the industrial park. We don’t want to kind of be just a hanging neighborhood that may not…so
we are working with them. The park commission recommended a trail head. One of the things
the city engineer was looking at too was additional storm water pond that could be…benefit. So
this is Audubon, so this would be that pond coming out and that would provide some additional
storage for…of Lyman. So the issue there, which hasn’t been completely resolved is obviously
they’d like to get those plats and legitimate lots is kind of working out some of the compensation
for eliminating these lots so that’s still in discussion and we haven’t resolved that yet and that
would be something that we work out between now and final plat. The Planning Commission
also discussed at their meeting, because of the garage, we talked about the feel from the street,
that they were pleased with their looks and I’ll let them go through all the different iterations of
their architecture that was arrived with each product there’s different views. But they wanted to
make sure that the garages were all, not just the standard flat garage but it has an architectural
relief to them, windows and those sort of things so they were high standard because it was a big
presence out on the street, and to accommodate that. There are some steep areas that would
require retaining walls, and most specifically in this area. Shown on the project is also some
storm water ponding. There’s also some wetland replacement that they are providing. The
applicant is providing for wetland replacement for the Bluff Creek Boulevard and then just
providing outside for, that would be actually the wetland that’s going to be right in the middle of
the round about between Sever Peterson’s property and Town and Country piece. So with that
I’ll just take a minute and I did get, just want to comment that, and I’ll let the city engineer talk
specifically about some of the engineering comments… I’m on page 2. There was a question
regarding the 100 foot buffer. Again when we saw these properties had a similar land use, so
therefore it doesn’t require a 100 foot buffer.
Mayor Furlong: Eventual land use.
Kate Aanenson: Pardon me?
Mayor Furlong: Eventual land use?
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Now what they’re zoned today, right and if it was to be anything besides
low or medium on the property to the west, you’d have to go through a land use amendment
which would have to be approved by the City Council.
Mayor Furlong: Property to the east.
Kate Aanenson: Excuse me, to the east. Property to the east, yeah. So right now we also have
medium and low, so it’s similar. So you want to go to a higher use. Commercial industrial, or
go to a lower use, large lot and that would still…The cul-de-sac lane. This would be the end of
the cul-de-sac lane… Also talks about on page 3 that, I’m not trying to answer that but that’s if,
it makes this property unbuildable if this project’s approved, again there’s somewhat of a guided
zone. I’m not sure whether that comment is true. They both had the same opportunity to come
in at a similar, or higher. Again I went through all the zoning options that I presented to you. It
could be something more vertical. They could do something clustered. There’s a lot of zoning
options for the Dorsey piece. So with that I’d like maybe Paul to take a few minutes to maybe
go through the road issue, but I just did want to comment there was a couple corrections. I’ll just
go through this quickly. On page 23 of your staff report, this is the end of the conditions. Just
for clarification. Number 60. It says depicted as Lot 1. It should says Lots 1 through 5, Block 5
and that’s this area up in here that we’re talking about. We’re talking about the trail head. I’m
not sorry, they’re not on the screen. That’s this area up in here where we’re talking about where
the trail head is. And then number 63 should be Outlots A, B, L and it should be N, not H.
Yeah, because H is a private park and we don’t want to take ownership of a private park. So
with that you have our findings of fact included and all the conditions. Otherwise I’ll turn it over
to Paul.
Paul Oehme: Thanks Kate. Mayor, City Council members. In review of the development we
do have one cul-de-sac, I think it’s to the 700-800 foot long cul-de-sac. We do have public
streets that are 60 feet wide. 31 foot road width. 60 foot right-of-way and then on some private
streets as well, but I guess for access purposes and for traffic access and routes, I think I’d like to
turn it over to the developer and maybe if he could just give a brief synopsis of his plans, and we
had also talked about some potential impacts with other access points, specifically by Lyman.
Maybe if we could have the applicant address some of those internal ones, I could hit the access
points on Lyman a little bit later after he brings up his issues I think internally.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, any questions for staff at this point? There may be some. There may
be some later.
Councilman Lundquist: I think I’ll wait until the presentation.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, any questions at this time? If not we’ll reserve the right to ask more
questions later. At this point the applicant is here I know. Good evening.
Dan Herbst: Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council, professional staff, ladies and
gentlemen. My name is Dan Herbst at 7640 Crimson Bay in Chanhassen representing Pemtom.
Also wanted to introduce some other people here this evening. I think you probably know Gayle
and Lois Degler. The owners of the property are here this evening. We seldom can get Gayle’s
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
father here. Any time there’s a Twins game on, we kind of lose him… On Gayle’s left is Lois
and on Lois’ left is Justin Larson. Planner, engineer with Westwood Professional Services. On
Justin’s left, I’d like for Allan Klugman to come up a little later and speak. Allan’s a
professional traffic engineer who represents both public and private interests throughout the
state. On Al’s left is Cory Meyer who is a landscape architect and planner with Westwood
Professional Services. And behind him is Dan Cook, my partner and also on Dan’s left is Brian
Sullivan from the Ryland Group so if you have any specific questions on the home cost points,
market, he’ll be happy to come up and answer them. Anyway we want to thank you very much.
You know more so than I do, this has been a long process for all of us. I think it was in 2003 that
you approved the AUAR but before that I know you put tons of time into the comprehensive
plan. Authorizing the AUAR. Going through the whole process and your staff has done a
wonderful job on making it a lot easier for our type of people, the development community to
come in and have you prepare all that work for us ahead of time. Transportation, wetlands. The
Bluff Creek corridor and all the things that you spent considerable time and money on that
process. It was deliberate. It was open. It was diligent and I commend you for all the work and
your staff I know has done a wonderful job. Along with that we have had discussions with the
Degler family. Dan and I probably going back over 15 years. Kind of watching this process and
what makes the best sense for this piece of land, as to what else was evolving in the, so our
vision for the property basically took in all the elements of your AUAR. Topography, the land,
the wishes of the Degler’s and then we also took a look at the marketplace and Chanhassen has
got some wonderful estate type developments. Many executive type neighborhoods that we did
with Lake Harrison and Settlers West. You also have a full mix of townhomes and detached
homes with common lots. And you have coming on, as we were watching carefully, a lot of new
townhome products that Town and Country and others are bringing on the marketplace. So
looking at all the elements of the land we wanted to do something unique. We wanted to do
something that’s not been offered in Chanhassen before. Many of you have been out to
Hennepin Village. We are doing a number of mixed products out there but our single family lots
out there are substantially smaller, in fact 50% less and we were targeting a certain type of buyer
in that entire mix, and probably when you watch the Planning Commission presentation and look
at some of our notes from the Planning Commission meetings, that was, that Hennepin Village
really evolved about from the Mayor, who’s deceased. Mayor Harris coming to me and saying,
Dan. We know you can go out there and do a Settlers Ridge or…and make the same amount of
money but we have about 11,000 more jobs in Eden Prairie than we have households and we
want you to target for that working person. Not affordability, although we have 8 affordable
housing units in there, and so we cut our lot size down to 4,000 so we have 5 different products
out there. But we wanted to introduce to Chanhassen something very unique. So we doubled
that lot size. Brian went to the drawing board. He came up with a housing product that solves
the lot problem with townhouses and smaller single family homes and is adding their own yard.
Adding some additional storage in the garage. If they want to they can actually have a 3 car
garage, and I’ll let Brian cover that if you want. So that’s kind of was our vision for the
property, and as you know you have your bluff overlay. You’ve got wetlands on the site.
Topography and the trees, and I don’t know, the more you want to take time to study this site, I
think the more you’ll appreciate the site itself. After you include your rights-of-way, your public
streets, excluding our private streets, and you look at the bluff overlay. Bluff Creek overlay,
almost 50% of the land will end up being in the public domain when that is all done, and that’s
extremely unique. Not only for the City to have, but for the residents to have. So I always, when
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
I drove over the hill and I looked at that property and I said something special has to be done
here, so we didn’t push the limit and try to maximize density with townhouses, which would be
permitted under your guide plan. Your comprehensive plan. We wanted to do something
different with our cluster housing plan. We wanted to do something different with a type of
product that is unique to Chanhassen, and if you want to we can spend some time with Cory
Meyer who worked very carefully with all of your staff and if you want him to spend 5 or 10
minutes, Cory’s a planner and landscape architect. I’d like him to talk briefly about how he
worked very carefully with your staff to come up with the plan that we have, and we’re planning
for. A couple of interesting items that I want to talk about relates to some comments I received
by e-mail from Mr. Dorsey. In my 36 years in this business, this is the first time I’ve had a
neighbor, after we were already down the road with a plan, come to us and come to you with an
idea to actually change our plan without having a plan himself. And I will have had, we’ve
worked well with neighbors in the past. We have a wonderful history of doing that. This kind of
put us in a different position so I didn’t want to stand up and defend that. I took all of his
comments and I handed them off to the entire staff at Westwood and I told you I wanted to look
at this from traffic. I want you to look at sight distance. I want you to look at our plan and I
want Al Klugman, as soon as Cory Meyer is through answering any questions you have on how
our plan evolved, to address I believe all the issues that are in the Dorsey memo to you and to
me. Another interesting thing in the memo I think talking about not paying our fair share of fees,
and I am a strong proponent of that. I always believe, as I told you before and anytime I’ve
come before you, I’m never looking for a subsidy. We want to do the right thing or we want to
be an asset to the community. Now if you look at what this site is generating, and I won’t go in
detail but just the fees and assessments, our fees, there’s over $3 million dollars in fees that are
going to be paid to the city to pay for the streets. To pay for their SWMP fees. The MUSA
AUAR…and also $900,000 in park fees. In addition to this traffic will generate, using today’s
dollars which will increase…about a million, $100,00 and $300,000 in additional building fees
so our total is about $4,200,000 in fees. If you want to put that on a per lot basis, that’s almost
$27,000 per lot that each one of these owners are taking back in the form of paying for their own
streets and paying for the park and paying for all the requirements that you have to work through
to approve this project and approve these building permits. Further, the site has a number of
private streets and those private streets will not be the responsibility of the city to maintain. So
in addition to all of the cost added benefits of this site, all the private streets will be maintained
by the homeowners and association with added savings for the city. So unless you have any
questions I would like to have Cory Meyer come up and briefly talk about the planning process
and then I’d like Allan Klugman to address the specific issues of Mr. Dorsey.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions at this point?
Dan Herbst: Okay, thank you.
Cory Meyer: Good evening Mayor, members of the council. My name’s Cory Meyer, as Dan
alluded to. I’m with Westwood Professional Services. I’m a landscape architect and planner and
I worked diligently with staff and Pemtom and Ryland to put together this plan. And what I
want to take the opportunity tonight is to just touch on a couple of key design elements of the
plan. First, the main two elements are issues I want to talk about is how this type of
development pattern is suited specifically for this type of site. And then two, how this
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development pattern is going to create a unique neighborhood for the city. So first off, how is
this development pattern specifically tailored for this site. What we’ve done, as Kate mentioned
is we’ve taken a modified type cluster approach where we’ve taken a normal single family
house, which would in other parts of the city typically be on a lot that’s about twice the size.
What we’ve done is we’ve taken that excess lot size, if you will. Taken it. Shrunken it down
and placed it in common areas associated with the Bluff Creek Overlay District. What we were
tempted to do is basically minimize the development footprint as much as possible. What
minimizing the development footprint allows us to do is again preserve key areas associated for
Bluff Creek Overlay District. Some additional wetland areas that are found on site. Some
wooded areas. Just generally the natural environment kind of benefits as a whole specifically on
this site by doing the cluster type approach. Tied in with the cluster type of approach is how we
treat the roadways. We have private and public streets. Emphasizing the connectivity of them.
We don’t want to create dead end’s more so than necessary. That things logically flow. You’ve
got a sense of people visiting a neighborhood and a unique sense of how to navigate through the
neighborhood. Things are laid out logically. Using public and private streets also allows the,
our development to kind of flow better with the land and we’re able to adapt better to the
topography that’s found on the site. How this development pattern is also specifically tailored
for this site. As was mentioned, the city regional trail that’s going to follow along the Bluff
Creek Overlay District. What we’ve taken that opportunity to do is to bring the sense of a
walkable community to this project. Where we’ve provided connections down to that trail. It’s a
unique opportunity that we want these future residents to take advantage of. And I also talked
about the preservation of the wetlands and the wooded areas on the site. Again minimizing the
development footprint allows us the opportunity to avoid those key environmental areas. So in
the second part of that is how is this development pattern going to create a unique neighborhood
for the city? As Dan talked about, we feel that the site of this topography and this character, that
single family homes are the best fit for that. They evolved, are easily adaptable to the
topography that’s found on the site. We can also achieve, by doing the cluster approach, we
achieve the density goals of the city without necessarily needing townhomes. So we made a
strong effort in how we lay out the site to utilize it’s character to the maximum. If you were to
overlay the topography on our project, how the street pattern is laid out relates exceptionally well
to the topography. The roads follow that. We’ve tried to maximize the number of homes that
back out to the open space and embrace it, and where that’s not the ability for those homes to
back out to the open space, we’ve again created that walkable community so there’s strong
pedestrian connections so even people on the inside are easily and, easily adaptable to get down
to the trail. As Dan mentioned, 50% of the site is in some sort of a public open space. That’s a
strong proponent of a cluster type of approach. Again minimizing the development footprint for
houses to dedicate the amount of land area. So I guess in summary again, just to touch on those
two key points that this development is tailored for this site. The environmental preservation.
How we laid out the homes and the streets was done with careful attention to the land. This
development is going to be unique neighborhood for the city. Given that the city’s going to meet
their density goals. They’re going to gain single family households. The city’s going to achieve
the preservation of the Bluff Creek Overlay District which is so strongly in your comprehensive
plan. And the future residents we believe are going to appreciate the sense of place that we’re
creating here. That this is a totally unique neighborhood and are going to be able to enjoy with
thoughtful consideration how we’ve gone through tonight. So with that I’ll turn it over to Mr.
Klugman, unless you have any questions for me.
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Mayor Furlong: Any questions at this point? And I don’t know if this would be a question for
you from a planning or streets, but just a question I guess with regard to some of the private
streets. It seems that most of them of them have a hammer head or some sort of turn around
except is it Street F. And I was curious, I know we’ve had an issue in the past and these are not
as small as some of the private driveways we have but nonetheless being able to have a service
vehicle or other vehicle turn around without pulling into somebody’s driveway. Was there a
reason that’s omitted or is that something that could be added easily enough?
Cory Meyer: We have turn around’s located on this street, this street and this. I guess this is the
one you’re referencing?
Mayor Furlong: Yep.
Cory Meyer: I guess in my opinion, that would be not that dissimilar from a typical dead end
townhome type common driveway that I think there’s like a magic number out there like 150 feet
that a fire hose will extend to. So our thought is that, what we could do is just, that the fire truck
could basically be at that intersection and still give, service the home at the end of that street.
Mayor Furlong: And part of it’s for convenience of the residents and also on Street J there’s
even less of a distance and you put a hammer head up there.
Cory Meyer: We can look into that. If there’s, what we’re trying to do is work with the
topography as much as possible. We can look into that issue.
Mayor Furlong: See council’s been presented with issues in past situations in the past so. So
let’s take a look at that and correct it.
Cory Meyer: We’ll take a look at it.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Probably just a little one. There may be other questions but as long as
you’re talking about layout I thought I’d bring it up now. Any other questions at this point?
Councilman Peterson: One of the questions that I’ve got on the Bluff Creek Overlay District,
when you articulated and we’ve got about 50% open space on the site. When you use 50%, are
you using the buildable site or the whole land in itself?
Cory Meyer: The whole land of itself. I mean if you look at our entire project is 80 acres
approximately. Whether it’s buildable or not, but at the end of the day the residents that are
living there aren’t going to really know if it’s buildable or not. They’re just going to know it’s
open space, and enjoy it as such so, that’s our, how we like to phrase that as, it’s open space.
Kate Aanenson: It’s probably closer to 15 acres that would be buildable.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Councilman Peterson: So that being said, walk me through, just point it out on that map or
another one, inside the buildable part of the site, and give me some sense as to what you’ve left
open.
Cory Meyer: I don’t know if it shows up very well on the camera here but what you’ll see, the
white dashed lines here are the Bluff Creek, the primary district for the Bluff Creek Overlay
District. So there’s a maximum area, I think the exact number that escapes me right now but in
all this area, outside this area is essentially outside of the Bluff Creek Overlay District that a
normal development would likely utilize more than what we’ve found here with the cluster type
approach.
Councilman Peterson: …the first dashed one. You lost me when you said, alright. Between
there and there?
Cory Meyer: I mean you have all this green area. Basically where the trail goes through, they’re
putting the city regional trail and then our developable area for the most part.
Councilman Peterson: Okay.
Cory Meyer: And Kate might have the exact number.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Yeah, it’s closer to like 15 to 17 acres. Again the tool to, and go back to
how we acquire within the Bluff Creek Overlay District is allowing you to transfer it out.
Otherwise, so if you look at. These are, the houses in yellow are all the lots that abut a private
street. It’s just shy of 50%. And from what I showed him here…but this darker black line is
actually the creek itself. So the…but the overlay district is actually…so with this big gap that
cuts through here, that’s…And this other areas are topographically separated…Does that answer
your question?
Cory Meyer: Any other questions?
Councilman Lundquist: Parking. On the private streets. In this condition I didn’t see anything.
I’m assuming it remains as no parking on those.
Kate Aanenson: No. You can’t park on those. Another example where we have parking on
private streets would be Villages on the Pond. Those are all private streets. And at one of our
first meetings with the city engineer was what we were going to require for…on street parking.
Now as I mentioned before, the public streets are the 60 foot wide with a 30 foot, and those will
have the high back curb. And the distinction on the private streets, they’ll have 28 foot wide of
pavement width, even though 40 foot right-of-way and they’ll have the surmountable curb, and
that will allow parking at 28 foot. The city engineer recommended that that would be
permissible for on street parking.
Councilman Labatt: On one side of the road or both sides or how are we going to?
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Kate Aanenson: That’s kind of how we do it now. If you have 2 people parking on a 31, it can
be a problem, depending on the size of the vehicle, so I mean most people use good judgment on
that but school buses trying to get by, that may be an issue but in evaluating this, the city
engineer recommended that that would be adequate. Again that’s how we looked at some of
those.
Councilman Lundquist: Paul, do we have streets existing, public streets that are 20. Didn’t we
just go from the standard changed a couple years ago from 28 to 30? I remember from
Highover, didn’t we have something, I think the streets up there are 28 or yeah, something.
Paul Oehme: There are streets in the city that are 28 feet, public streets. Parking on both sides.
An example of a street that we just reconstructed, just off Laredo. That street is 28 feet wide too.
We had to shrink those streets down to compromise with the residents out there to get a good
product so.
Councilman Lundquist: So when we talk about private streets, I mean I’m envisioning some of
our town house things where we’ve got the narrower, okay. So this is.
Paul Oehme: Typically those other developments, the townhouse units are 20 feet or 24 feet
wide. Not the 28 that we’re recommending.
Kate Aanenson: Let me just add a clarification. In the PUD itself, in the parking section, when
you do in the R-8 zone, it does require a wider street. If this was, back to your question for the
townhouse, just like Paul indicated, the ordinance does allow you to go smaller. Typically that’s
what we see because we don’t allow parking. Because we do allow parking, we’re forcing them
to do a wider pavement.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Yep, that’s fine. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions at this point? Okay.
Cory Meyer: I’ll turn it over to Al Klugman who will address some of the issues that they have
with the Dorsey memo.
Allan Klugman: Good evening. Again my name is Allan Klugman. I’m with Westwood
Professional Services. I’m a registered civil engineer. Within the civil engineering I mainly
work in the transportation area. In addition to being a registered engineer I’m a certified traffic
operations engineer so kind of my specialty. One of the things that we did hear, and I hope this
will show up. As Dan mentioned, we did receive a sketch from the Dorsey people, and although
it was a very rough sketch, we felt that we would give it the serious…and try to respond and see
what it would do to our site, and I believe...great detail went through some of the issues that
quickly…what I’d like to do tonight is go through that memo. Certainly not word for word but
on many of the key points I’d like to…the way I understand it. Although you can certainly draw
a line on a piece of paper and say that’s the road, I think when we look at it in any degree as we
can, we see in a hurry there’s numerous causes…impacts on the site, and both Dan said in the
introduction and I think Cory in his detailed comments, we really put a lot of work into this.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Coming up with the street lay that fits this site and fits the topography, and I think you’ll see in a
hurry that trying to comment on the plan that the Dorsey people put forward, it just… So I’m
just going to cut right to some of the points and if you have any detail questions. I’m going to be
rather brief… We labeled them, the points with letters to just kind of highlight what we’re
talking about. And just right off the bat we looked at, when we looked at the proposed
north/south road, this east line here, right, it’s a very difficult intersection we labeled point A.
…boulevard at about a 45 degree angle instead of a perpendicular intersection we could establish
with to the east with a regular alignment there, so right off the bat you see some problems. In
addition…site layout in the business district… Just kind of going along the lines there, we then
get to the point where introducing, or trying to introduce a road like this immediately gives us
some double loaded houses with streets on both sides, which is really not what we’re trying to
achieve. And then we get into, and again I’m just going to keep talking quickly here. We get
into some issues that you know upon careful look just come up right away that doesn’t show
up… There’s significant wetland issues that would arise from this location. Point C here,
there’s wetland on this site that’s shown right through there. D represents the intersection of the
north/south connector proposed with this street. You have wetland and I don’t even think that
that intersection could be built so, it’s just, it’s not something that’s practical at all. And then
among the other things that this would do too, is it would impact the private park that we have
showing as Point E, which would be the extension in this area. And then maybe a bigger point,
stepping back a bit, it just takes away from the entire concept for development of clustering the
houses. Reducing the impervious surface and the whole character of this development that
we’ve been looking at. And then kind of going along even into the development, when we get
away from some of those specific things and start looking at the lay of the land and the
topography, those type of lots and it’s a little bit away from my…traffic engineering to site
layout, but when we get into what we’re labeling…G, the houses are well suited to be walkout
lots would just be lost with this type of plan, so you can see kind of the domino effect…all the
care and planning that went into creating this special site would just be taken away in a hurry.
Finally as we looked to what would happen if we tried to accommodate a road like that as it’s
shown. As a connector road with the higher volumes, it’s a little bit different design standards.
It seems more…those issues caused by the wider road and design standards. And then finally
moving up mostly north of this site. By introducing the roads here, you’re then left with…at that
intersection that’s very well spacing…do some more intersections than we’d like to see. It also
takes away from our ability to do the type of housing Cory was talking about with the garages
and driveways to the side, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for this character. So again, taken away
from the character and the site plan. And then finally I guess one more technical detail that
wasn’t addressed in the Dorsey memo. The touch down point for this is probably about the exact
wrong place of where you want to put that due to the grade differential to lining it and the
amount of fill it would need to accommodate that road so…it goes on to say that, there’s many,
many points that on a very, you know very initial look at that, many things jump up and say that
road isn’t going to work there. It doesn’t fit at all with the character of the development, and we
just thought we’d start by… Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Paul, did you want to make, did you say you wanted to talk about
some city perspective now? Do you want to do that now?
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Paul Oehme: Yeah, I think I emailed out Westwood’s background last weekend on the layout
that Allan just talked about. One other item that, in terms of access to, yes I think that access
point right on the property line between Dorsey and Degler’s is approximately about 1,200 feet
away from Audubon and that is approximately a quarter mile spacing that the county potentially
could allow. But in my estimation that’s not a good location for an access, a collector road
access. Potentially 1,800 units, 1,800 trips on this roadway winding at that particular location is
approximately at a 5% grade. And with a turn lane at that location, could potentially have
problems in wet and snowy conditions. Stop conditions. The future roadway, Lyman Boulevard
is, will be at 50 miles per hour design speed so coming down a hill at a 5% grade could
potentially be concern for the residents accessing at this particular location so. The other issues
with that access point, I think I’ll just leave them go for now. I can answer, stand for any
questions too that you might have about the access or traffic in general for this development but.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. I mean the underlying question here is where should the north/south
connection be between the east/west collector and Lyman Boulevard, so I think we’ve heard
from the developer how that would affect their development, but I think from the city standpoint,
you know.
Paul Oehme: Well it potentially could work there I guess but it’s not the preferred location in
my estimation. We had Mr. Dorsey and I did have a conversation a week ago or so, 2 weeks ago
now, about potential other locations and what I got out of that conversation was, and from a staff
perspective, there is another location for that north collector.
Mayor Furlong: There is or is not?
Paul Oehme: There is. And that would be at Sunset Trail. T’ing in at that location. From a
traffic perspective, you always want to limit and consolidate access points. That allows us to do
that tight T’ing at an access point. You know I did have a site visit out there. Took a look at it,
and then I did have, and we did, the city did spend some time and some funds looking at that
intersection too from a sight distance perspective to what we could, with the improvements to
Lyman Boulevard, make a quality intersection function with improvements to Lyman Boulevard
to meet that sight distance requirements. We do have Lyman Boulevard and we are continuing
to work with the county on upgrading that section of roadway so, so we do have in our CIP I
think for 2009.
Mayor Furlong: In terms of matching up, Audubon comes down from the north. That’s not at
the eastern property line of this development? It’s shown on the west?
Paul Oehme: That is on the west side, yeah. Audubon is on the west.
Mayor Furlong: To get to that line we’d have to cross the creek if we were coming up on this
side.
Paul Oehme: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: You have a picture?
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Paul Oehme: This is a drawing showing the traffic where the roadway alignment is, was
proposed in AUAR back in 2003. The access point that you were referring to Mayor was at
Audubon and it has always been envisioned that to serve the property west would T into
Audubon at that location and a wrap around to Lakeview Drive there so. You know all the other
access points to in this area are T’ing into other roadway, residential roadway or collector
roadways to the east, or to the west we are, the east/west collector road, we’ll be tying into
Butternut to the west or you know we’ll be tying into Powers Boulevard in the off ramp to 212
and to the south. That road will now tie into Bluff Creek Drive, T’ing into the south there, so all
the roads we’re proposing right now would be tying into.
Kate Aanenson: I just want to clarify too, because it’s difficult to show but there is a creek, the
creek and we looked…so that’s why this road has to stay on this side of the creek.
Mayor Furlong: Show where the creek is.
Todd Gerhardt: Why don’t you show this map that shows the details. The fourth page in in the
report.
Mayor Furlong: We need about 3 more maps.
Kate Aanenson: It doesn’t show the road on it but this is the creek. So what they’re showing is
stopping short, so here’s Audubon. So you have to stay on this side of the creek. This is where
the lift station is. It’s just on the east side of the creek so, what we’re trying to avoid, because we
talked about all the projects in here, is minimize creek crossings. That’s been the goal. So we
have…with the boulevard. The other point I wanted to make when we talked about similar
densities, you know the AUAR recommended this and this, a connection point on Lyman. One
additional connection point, so the other thing is we don’t know what’s happening on the
property, these two properties, so for example if it came in low density, then we would re-
evaluate. Maybe there doesn’t need to be a connection if it comes in low density. If there’s a
request to do something different, higher density, then we’d have to evaluate that but right now,
based on the fact that it was intended to show maximum development, that’s what was built
under the maximum for the lower end of the density and that’s something that we would
certainly evaluate and maybe similar to this one, that that connection would need to be made.
But since we don’t have a plan in front of us, we can’t make that…but we would certainly look
at it. Again…using the traditional single family subdivision for example. If it went less than
that, as I indicated before, it’d have to come back for a comp plan amendment.
Mayor Furlong: When we were working through the AUAR, if I recall, there were a few things
that were established when we approved that, and one of those were the touch down points or the
intersections for the east/west collector. Both on Audubon and on Powers Boulevard. Was there
a similar type of texture in terms of where the alignment to the east/west collector on the north or
Pioneer Trail to the east/west collector?
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Kate Aanenson: Right, I mean you saw this connection but as we saw when Pioneer Pass came
in, it moved. They worked it into their development to provide access. They built, that’s a
minor collector. 80 foot wide. They’re building that then as a part of development.
Mayor Furlong: But that moved and.
Kate Aanenson: Yes it did, yeah. To work in the development.
Mayor Furlong: And to align with Bluff Creek Drive.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, to change again so there’s that flexibility so again we can look at that too
if it came in on the low end of the density.
Paul Oehme: And just for the record Mayor, council. Zach did look at the access point at Sunset
Trail too and basically this is the access point that the Degler site is right here. And the east
property line to the Degler’s is currently right there. You know to provide proper profile for
sight distances at a 50 miles per hour road, the access point at Sunset Trail would have to be
lowered approximately about a foot, so it’s not a big impact to the roadway or to the connections
to the south to make that, to make that intersection function properly.
Councilman Lundquist: How far is it Paul from Sunset to what will be Powers extension?
Paul Oehme: 1,250 feet. Not quite.
Mayor Furlong: And what’s your standard of what you’re looking for, for a minimum?
Paul Oehme: 1,200.
Mayor Furlong: It’s 1,200? Okay.
Councilman Peterson: Go back to the previous map if you would Paul. Do we remember what
the rationale was for that placement where it is now?
Paul Oehme: You know the AUAR I believe it just stated that there should be an access point
from Powers Boulevard over to Audubon. I think just kind of picked halfway inbetween. I don’t
think there was really any significant.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, the design speed, as Paul indicated before. Lyman’s going to be faster
than the Bluff Creek Boulevard, so they wanted to get those spacings between, kind of more
equal distance because of the speed and the volume on Lyman so. With those traffic counts.
Councilman Peterson: Is the, and I don’t recall. The Plowshares development that’s going in
just about north of where that road is now. That will or will not have access to Lyman.
Kate Aanenson: Will not.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Councilman Peterson: So that’s going through the Lake Susan Hills?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Osprey Lane.
Paul Oehme: Yep, and stubbing a street to the east.
Kate Aanenson: Providing a stub street to the property to the west of that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Appreciate the information.
Dan Herbst: Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Herbst.
Dan Herbst: If you would like any questions directed to the Ryland Group as to product type,
target market, floor plan, I’ll bring Brian Sullivan to the podium.
Mayor Furlong: I think so.
Brian Sullivan: Hi, I’m Brian Sullivan. I’m with Ryland Homes. We’re thrilled and excited to
be here. Ryland Homes has been in the Twin Cities market for about 10 years now and to my
knowledge we haven’t been in your fair city, so we’re very excited about that. We’ve been
working with Dan and his group for quite a while on the concept plan that we’ve come up with
here and the concept plan and home style we’re proposing here is something that we’ve been on
for about a year now with the type of homes that we’re proposing here. What we’ve been doing
is, through our market research and realizing where land prices are and what people want and
what people don’t want, we see that there’s a shift in the market a little bit. And one of the
things that we realized is that everyone wants a 3 car garage. And then we go to the city people,
like talking with Kate and Kate looks at a 3 car garage as across the front of the house and she
goes, that doesn’t look very good. Just having 3 car garage, 3 car garage, 3 car garage, all down
the street here, so we started you know…so what we started doing as we’re thinking about this
issue as to how best present our homes to the city, how to have the direct land cost continuing to
escalate and how to best address and some internal, some issues that people have on the interior
of the homes. We started re-thinking our product mix a little bit. What we did is we came up
with this cluster home here that has been redefined on the inside. One of the things to mainly
address issues with the city was how do we…the appearance of our homes from the street as
you’re going through the neighborhoods, and what we did is, we designed a home that has a 3
car garage but the, from the front side of it, it looks like a 2 car garage. What we’ve done is
we’ve stacked one of the garage stalls behind the other and what we’ve learned from our, kind of
market research is that people want the third stall but they don’t need to use it every day. They
use it for storing their bicycles and their toys and the boat. The summer car. It may be a summer
car…winter car so it’s not something that you need to have every day, that third stall, garage
doors open up to another bay. So when we came across that realization we were like well geez,
we can go with a little bit narrower house, which means we have a little bit narrower lot, which
means we can pay…and see if we can come up with what is a fairly nice, nice looking
subdivision here. And if you look at it, it’s kind of a typical streetscape here. You can see what
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
we’ve done is we have about 8, we have 8 floor plans. Eight home styles that we’re, 8 floor
plans we’re proposing here and each of those floor plans has 4 or 5, 3, 4, or 5 different elevations
on the front of them. Some of them have brick on them. Some of them have stone on them.
Some have just a porch out front. Some are prairie style…there’s lots of different options so as
home buyers come through, they can…here this may be close to what you’re thinking about here
and we have a floor plan that goes inside that and…offering to the home buyer and have a very
unique… The other thing that we’ve done is if you look at the corner, corner lots here. We’ve
designed a house that’s been designed for a corner lot there and, what it is, it’s a, the garage on
that is around, off around the back side of it there. So the garages are side loaded off the corner
of the street there. What that does is it just helps, it also diminish the number of, the number of
garage doors that are on the street there also. And if you go through our development here you’ll
see a fair number of corners there that we can use to put these on. We also have some of these
other homes with the 2 car garages, will also fit on these garage corners because we have some
setback issues we need to work with so there are, there is an option that will be…garage doors
facing the front. So that’s kind of how we designed the homes there. We started looking at this,
at how we can, we’re looking at narrow lots. Somebody said well how do we get the narrow lots
to work, and we ended up designing houses specifically for the narrower lots. It’s not like we’re
trying to squeeze a bigger house onto a smaller lot…trying to get the site plan to work here and
help with…real unique neighborhood. As far as price point here, we’re probably in the low, or
actually I should say high $300’s. Low $400’s is kind of the base, starting point. Then they’ll
go up to 5-6. Maybe 6 when people start loading them up with sun porches and marble in
kitchens and stainless steel amenities and things that people like to have so. We’re kind of in the
middle of things there and looking for a nice market segment. Sever Peterson’s property to the
south of us, he’s got the large lots that are more of an executive style home. Town and Country
stuff which is the lower level home for multi-family type of product. We’re looking at
something that’s kind of inbetween the two… Not the real pricey guys. We’re not the real cheap
guys as far as the type of homes… So that’s what we have, if you have any questions, I’ll be
happy to answer them.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions.
Councilman Peterson: Do you have any sense of how many different color palettes you’re going
to use when you drive through the neighborhood and is it going to be half a dozen or…
Brian Sullivan: There are probably about half a dozen different color palettes there. A lot of the
color will come from when people put brick and stone on the front of their house there. The
siding tends to be in the earth tone colors. We’ve gone a little deeper on which way we call it
deeper colors back there so we’ll have some contrast between our lighter color and darker colors.
See them popping out more as you go through here. One of the comments the Planning
Commission had was about garage doors and the whole issue of whether or not they, were they
going to be flat or…one in the illustration here with, I had to go back and say no. We’re
showing raised panel doors here and plain doors with windows. Basically all of the garage
doors, they have the texture of some paneling to them, and then as an option to kind of look at
the elevation to go with some of the garage doors and windows…so that will also be a, one of the
components.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: And I guess following up on the question of color, and looking at this picture
here which I think is up on the table. And it’s hard to differentiate the, I mean there are two that
are the darker brown, and then the others look to be grayer or some sort of tan or something. Is
there, are there more differentiating colors than what we’re seeing on this plan?
Brian Sullivan: ...that’s probably a pretty close representation of what will be out there as far as
colors. We’re looking at, I’m trying to get some, there are some darker blues and there’s some
kind of reddish colors that we’re looking at introducing here and I don’t think you see those up
there. There’s also some greens also. But.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Any other questions for Mr. Sullivan? No? Very good, thank you.
Councilman Peterson: Probably just one of staff as we’re talking about garage doors. I know
that staff is a proponent of adding character to the garage doors. Can we put in the approval that
a certain…
Kate Aanenson: Sure, and I think we want to follow up with some color too. A percentage of.
We’re comfortable with the mix we’ve got and looked at the…but I think it’s always better to be
more restrictive so I think that would be when they come back for final plat that we ask for a
color palette and that certain percentage. I think Planning Commission struggled with that too.
And the standard one, when we do townhouse projects, we always ask for and it’s our opinion
that those add better value in a townhouse project. If this is a single family, typically we don’t.
All that’s required, but I think it’s fair because it’s the PUD to ask…
Mayor Furlong: I agree. I think asking for more on the colors. I guess my question is when do
we do that? Can we defer that…
Kate Aanenson: We can put in a condition then it comes back at final plat. That they show you
the color palette.
Mayor Furlong: That they work with staff.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, yeah. And then we could stick with the same, I think he’s clarified that
he has at least 4 colors and I think what we want to see is we’re kind of moving right now
towards the deeper colors to the lighter and I think that’s…want to see the deeper greens and
the…more of a golden color. It’s just deeper, richer colors.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, I think it’s variety as much as picking colors but okay. So that’s
something we can include. To work with you to.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Okay, any other questions at this point? Okay, Mr. Herbst, is that it
from your side?
Dan Herbst: We want to thank you.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, any follow up questions at this point for staff?
If not, Mr. Dorsey requested to address the council and I’d certainly be interested in hearing his
comments at this time.
Rick Dorsey: Mayor, members of the council. I appreciate the time to speak with you this
evening. My primary concerns, as you all know, have dealt with transportation. Access to the
area. It’s been a big part of it. The plan that’s put forth, and can you zoom in on that please a
little bit for me. Little more. The whole area here is what should be looked at. We’re not
looking at just one individual point. Concern with traffic flow. Mitigation of traffic on the
eastern end of the property is something I’ve talked about numerous times. And while I haven’t
met with Mr. Herbst other than when I was notified his plan was going to come in front of the
city, I’ve been very vocal in front of the council and I think you would go and find out the
information as far as my concerns with that. The proposed alternative road that just showed up
here this last week. I haven’t seen this before. But I have looked at the option. Comes right
across through the middle of my property. It will be a collector road. Last meeting at the
Planning Commission meeting the Planning Commission said it wouldn’t be acceptable for a
collector road to go through the middle of the Pemtom property when it was brought up as an
option over there. Likewise my property is zoned, or not zoned but guided similarly. I would
expect that it wouldn’t be acceptable to come through the middle of my property either. In
addition to that, there will have to be, because there’s not adequate road services provided in the
plan for the Pemtom property, they have one access point at this time on the east/west collector
with a 1,700 foot cul-de-sac. The way around that is if a temporary access point through my
property. Somewhere about this point so you’d have to put another equivalent of a connector
road coming across there to connect up with the connector. This doesn’t really leave me with
very desirable area of land to work with. For anybody who’d want to be a resident in this
property. In the future and as far as having flexibility to design and plan building around
collector roads, like I say. Planning Commission as well as staff made note of it. It isn’t
acceptable in any other project so, you know similarly I’d expect the same thing. Now
traditionally, well before I go to traditionally. Let’s go back to, this was planned for the
east/west collector that the staff supported. The City Council approved final plan for back in
August of 2005. Note the north collector’s location. Is on the Pemtom project property. So it
has moved since that point in time. No discussion had with myself whatsoever from the
developer. When I found out about the possible move of it, about late October, early November,
I discussed it with Paul and said that wasn’t what we were anticipating, nor anything to the desire
of what we might have. Now back at that time, why there’s a problem today with the access
point onto Lyman if at that point in time there wasn’t a problem with it. In doing a little bit of
research here, as far as distances. From the standpoint of location to nearest intersection, Paul
had mentioned about 1,200 feet. I went out and measured it out. It was 1,185. And this one up
here is actually 1,150, depending on at what point you stop at on a curve point there. They’re
similar distances. So the distance of, to one intersection or the other doesn’t have an impact on
the location. Now, the concern that I would have from looking at the whole picture, if I go back
to this drawing here is, from the internal standpoint, the traffic, the location that’s most central to
the whole 2005 service area is right here. With that being the center point of the development, it
would encourage mitigation of traffic because people coming out here, they’re actually closer to
Audubon than they are to Powers, which would encourage those going to Highway 5 to consider
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Audubon as an alternative. Likewise if they’re going to downtown Chanhassen, they wouldn’t
have to put all the pressure on this intersection over here. This particular drawing here, coming
out here, is only 1,200 feet from this intersection. This will be probably the busiest intersection
outside of those on Highway 5 in the city. To try to mitigate some traffic away from that
intersection would be prudent I would believe. From the standpoint of internally to my property
there’s also natural features there that provide limitations as far as future development. This is a
fairly steep hillside along this side with low ground in here. The area along the road here is
actually an embankment coming down onto my property which limits the access point to
probably only this location as well. The one that’s on, if it wasn’t down here. As well the pond
that’s right here, from the house there’s actually a hill. There’s no land. There’s probably about
25-30 feet maybe right down by the wet ground, so there’s really nothing between here and here
that’s any further useable, so you’d have a little pocket here and two little pieces here that are of
significance with this option. And it’s not that something couldn’t be built there but from the
standpoint of a collector, you’re not going to be able to build houses and have them back out of
their driveways onto it. You’re going to have to figure out another configuration. From the
standpoint as well, while I don’t purport to be an engineer, I trust that engineers have talents and
skills and creativity and could come up, they can come up with a solution for darn near anything
if you put the challenge to them, and enough money. And my drawing that I provided Paul with
and he forwarded across was conceptual. And the idea there was to say how can we look at
another alternative that keeps the bulk of this land here. The Fox and Dorsey parcels open and
flexible so that development can happen. The idea, the exact locations matching up to those on
the Pemtom plan, you know that is not necessarily what I was suggesting. I’m not sure actually
how he’s going to build those going down the hill here without some sort of major grading or
retaining wall, but I’m sure it can be done. In any case the idea there was to utilize the collector
as a buffer between properties. Very common. You have different types of usages and with
different types of usages, you create senses of neighborhoods for those developments that are
built. The issue of, the other issue that’s there is in not having it here you preclude the
opportunity for potentially, and while it’s not part of the AUAR, a second intersection up at this
point to provide access to the Fox property which is virtually landlocked at this point because
they have a small segment right here that’s a possibility. The rest of Lyman is not a possibility.
All the way down Powers is not a possibility to get into their property, and if you come across,
let’s see. As you come across what was proposed for the east/west collector, the soonest
intersection you could create coming off of Powers in this property is right about here which this
is a wetland or proposed, considered to be a wetland. It hasn’t been delineated yet. Providing
very difficult access to that property. So precluding that one forces one here. So then where
does the traffic go from the Fox property as well. Some of it maybe can come out this way. I
have a significant asset sitting on the top of that hill, as many of you know. It’s significant and
it’s something that I don’t say that we’re just going to give up. I would say that there’s a good
chance, depending on what goes on with the rest of the area around me, still single family could
be an option. And with single family that could be 1 to 4 units an acre. 1 to 4 units per acre is
different intensity. I’ve got use on this site and I don’t know what it’s going to be. It may be
that. It may be higher. I don’t know. There’s no plan in place at this point. I’m at least 6 years
out because of it being in the ag preserve. So in any case I would like to have opportunities.
There’s, it’s reasonable to be able to put such a road along the property line. With the plan that’s
proposed by Pemtom today, I can’t even put a road adjacent to my property line because the
houses are backed up against it with a road on the other side of them, which would make 2 roads
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
on either side of those properties. So this is kind of a one sided situation right here. I believe
precedent was set in dealing with Sever Peterson’s property and Town and Country property
when they originally had the road coming across Sever Peterson’s property and put it across the
two properties and split it down the middle. Splitting it down the middle does two things. It
shares the amount of land that either party has to give up, and both parties will benefit from that
road. It also shares the cost of that road, which probably will be in excess of a million dollars.
So from the standpoint of in the future a road being needed, certainly if I never develop my
property there’d be a problem with the Pemtom property. They’re under serviced with roads.
And so there would be a requirement or need for them to have some sort of access to another
collector road. The opportunity is there to provide it. I’m not here to try and hold up their
project but I do think it’s fair and reasonable, if he was on the other side of the table, he’d be
right here saying the same things I am to you, that fair and reasonable would be splitting it down
the middle and both parties would benefit and both parties can contribute to it. One other note
here, I also went and measured off on Powers Boulevard just to have an idea of distances
between intersections and if you go up to the street here, starting up here at the, I believe it’s
Lake Drive West. From this point here to this point here at Lake Susan Hills is 960 feet. To go
from that point to Powers Court is 800 feet. And then 1,160 between these two, so on country
roads it’s not unprecedented to have smaller segments between them. It’s maybe what we would
like to see is larger. Quarter mile is actually 1,320 feet so neither of the locations on Lyman
would meet that criteria. The other issue that was there when I was looking at it and researched
this was that sight distances are an issue today. Right now the first sight distance coming down
is at that point, so from a standpoint of safety issues, that’s the first point where you could put a
road. Perhaps Lyman will get re-graded or rebuilt. It’s been on the plans I believe since the
90’s. Early 90’s. Hasn’t been built yet. I anticipate it probably will be built sooner than later
but at the same time if I get to the table in 6 years and it’s not built, what does that mean?
There’s no access point to Lyman Boulevard for me because I can’t meet the state guidelines.
Without rebuilding Lyman Boulevard. So in fairness, and I’ve heard that said many a times and
I do believe that that would be the intention of all involved would be to look at it and say, from
the benefit of the whole community, bring the traffic up to this point to help mitigate the traffic
going through these neighborhoods would be something that should be certainly considered. To
look at the area around this area here and trying to get some of the traffic away from it, and make
sure it’s not just instantly going to be a problem would be to look to again centralize it over here.
So that’s what I have to say right now. Again, I would look to the council to look at it fairly and
I guess there’s one other item dealing with ordinances. Again difference of opinion perhaps but
the way the ordinance reads is if one property has a higher, intense use than another, and I have
two dual guided uses. While they’re the same, this property selected the higher usage. I still
have dual guidance. It could be the lower. It could be my decision. Could be the city’s
decision. I don’t know that. In any case I feel that my property should be protected to provide
that. One other quick issue dealing with the buffer there, or the road being there. It does provide
an ability for somebody to enter into one neighborhood or the other and have monuments and
knowledge you’re going into a different neighborhood. And as well, in the interim, until my
property is developed, it is agricultural. There will be agricultural equipment operating on it.
Chemicals being sprayed. Fertilizer being put on the ground, and a buffer of a road would
certainly keep children from going across and into the field like it’s their back yard. So those are
the points of concern I have at this time. Any questions, I’d be happy to answer.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for Mr. Dorsey? No? Okay, thank you. Comment for staff or,
follow up comments.
Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor. Just a couple real quick points here. We are trying to allow,
the most flexibility in these designs. It’s just hard to plan for flexibility when there’s no design
that we have in front of us, and we don’t know exactly what to plan for. Let’s see. Actually the
north collector roadway that we had you know shown on this drawing here, again it’s only
approximation or it’s our best stab at what potentially could develop. I think Mr. Fox or Mr.
Dorsey had indicated an access point close to this location so we just kind of put something in
there so. You know it’s all flexible. We’re not saying this is where it needed to go. We’re
recommending putting it there. I mean we’re allowing that to be dealt with in the future and to
have the property owners, the developers look at where a road potentially could best serve their
development. The information that we had received from the Degler’s and the Fox’s.
Mayor Furlong: Dorsey’s.
Paul Oehme: Dorsey’s, I’m sorry. Had, you know this is one of the concepts that we had
received and you know the access point that we had shown here before with the north collector
roadway access from the adjacent property owner here, plus the access point someplace at Sunset
Trail too so. We’re trying to look at all these access points. Where do we tie these
developments in that are being proposed at this time, plus try to plan for the future so we’re, you
know from a staff’s perspective, we’re trying to do our best and try to see what, plan for the
future and try to accommodate the property owners and developer’s wishes on how they think
they can best develop their property. Let’s see, one last point again with the, I’m showing on
this drawing here. You know putting the north collector roadway where Mr. Dorsey had
preferred it to go would go, is again it’s at a 5% grade. I think from a staff’s perspective and the
traveling public you know, turn lanes on collector roadways at 5% grade, left turn lanes, it’s not.
You know there’s other locations for those type of access points. Those are the type of access
points that we should look at alternatively from steep grades like that, just from a safety
perspective.
Councilman Peterson: So 5% grade would be pre, pre Lyman reconstruction?
Paul Oehme: Pre and post.
Mayor Furlong: I’m sorry, what did you say? Pre?
Paul Oehme: Pre and post. What we had looked at was sight lines at Sunset Trail and down to
Powers Boulevard and where it potentially could tie into existing grades too. You don’t want to,
try to keep the grades at where they are because it just drives up the cost to change the grades.
Todd Gerhardt: How much would you have to cut down from the hill if you were to try to
eliminate the 5%?
Paul Oehme: Significantly.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Todd Gerhardt: I mean can you point on there where you’d have to.
Paul Oehme: Well, you know the existing grade is 5% right there. I mean I don’t know what the
magic number is to put in the access point there. 3% maybe that’s the recommended grade for a
50 miles per hour collector roadway for turn lane. I don’t know, it would be significant to make
that access point work. Another issue that Mr. Dorsey had brought up too again was, maybe just
going back to this map real quick. Putting an access point here would encourage more traffic to
go up Audubon Road. Audubon right now is a city owned collector roadway. Powers Boulevard
is a collector roadway. Four lane divided. That’s where you know in staff’s recommendation,
that’s where the traffic should be going out on the city collector roadway. Those are.
Kate Aanenson: I just had one other thing to add, because I want to go back to the land use
issue, and that’s again we indicated if that came in, we believe we’ve interpreted the code
correctly, as far as the buffer because it’s similarly guided. Again if we would evaluate the same
thing and Mr. Dorsey came in with a less intense and again the AUAR made assumptions based
on the higher end because we use the most amount. We evaluate that and maybe a street
wouldn’t need to be connected to Lyman if they chose to go with the low end, and that’s a
possibility and we’d certainly evaluate that. So that connection wouldn’t need to be made.
Councilman Lundquist: Paul, Kate, if I heard you correctly before. Is it an accurate statement
that the impact of the Pemtom development on the property to the east is a connection to public
street. Whatever that one is coming across there, and then the east/west collector that goes
through.
Mayor Furlong: East/west collector, yeah. If I’m not mistaken, that is on the Fox family
property.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay. West, okay. But the property to the east of this development,
and so really the east/west is our deal. That’s the city driven so the public street going across
there, connecting to the east from the Pemtom development.
Kate Aanenson: Are you talking about this one?
Councilman Lundquist: That one right there, yep. And then everything else to the east is
essentially up to grabs, depending upon what happens.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilman Lundquist: So Kate, if I heard you before, depending on what goes on that property
to the east, we may not ever have to make a connection to Lyman if it didn’t want it or
depending on what the use or what that ended up being. So is that?
Kate Aanenson: That’s fair.
Councilman Lundquist: Fair that that could be anything?
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Kate Aanenson: Well right now it’s guided low or medium and if it was to come in something
large lot estates, it’s not guided for that. You’d have to do a land use amendment. Right now if
it came in with low or medium, that’s consistent with the comprehensive plan. If it came in for
commercial, industrial, that again would take a land use amendment. At those two options,
commercial industrial, they’re probably more than confidently require that that connection be
made. If it was to come in consistent with the comprehensive plan, low density, say single
family lots, more than likely you could make the internal loops. You’d still…all the access,
because the volume wouldn’t be so great on this street. It’d all be…
Councilman Lundquist: When we talked about the AUAR, did we talk about how many
connections it was going to be to Lyman?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, the one additional one besides.
Councilman Lundquist: Besides that little loop street there.
Kate Aanenson: This one here that… that ties back down. And then there’s another connection
in the AUAR that shows it approximately, yeah.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay, so if in the future that one didn’t happen, what would be the
consequence there?
Kate Aanenson: Well the AUAR said, based on traffic modeling, if you went underneath that
model, which is what he’s saying it may be a possibility, then we would evaluate that. More
than likely it wouldn’t be anything.
Mayor Furlong: Would we have to redo the AUAR, amend that?
Kate Aanenson: As long as we stay under the model. You know as we look at that, I’m pretty
confident based upon the future of single family home. If you look at what we’ve got with 5
units an acre here. We’ve got 155. Similarly number you’d probably be way under that. Maybe
80 lots. I can’t imagine that…
Councilman Peterson: Well that’s one of the issues we talked about at Town and Country Phase
II is that, some of us, if not most of us were concerned about the intensity or density of all…so I
think we’ve already proven that we’re already going over our number of density. So I think if
we do less, I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.
Kate Aanenson: Right, yeah.
Councilman Lundquist: So then back to, so really the impact on this project to the property, well
for that matter to the west and to the east is one residential street.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Councilman Lundquist: We’ve got the part of that loop that will go from Audubon going to the
west. And you’ve got this public street to be determined name going to the east. And those are
the two connections and other than that the roadway’s unaffected.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. I just feel compelled to say something else for the record and that’s,
you know because when the city initiated the McComb study to look at, to be proactive, and the
one thing we did learn in that, and I just want to put this on the record, is that if a lifestyle center,
some additional commercial wants to go here, that developer is going to want that access. We
feel it’s prudent that we provide that opportunity on this site… We’re trying to give them the
flexibility.
Councilman Lundquist: I want to make sure that we’re not spending our whole evening talking
about what might be on property to the west or the east with regard to this. My concern is,
what’s the you know, I don’t want to hamper the property to the west or to the east for some
future, and I think that by essentially putting one connection in each one, that’s about as
minimum, I mean zero is the only other choice, which doesn’t seem likely that you’re not going
to connect them somehow, so to have one property, I just want to make sure that’s just to clarify
that. Okay. And then one other about the, I think what is Mr. and Mrs. Degler’s driveway now,
that, where that is a hammer handle down there. That not being a connection point just because
it’s too close to Audubon. Is that what the driver is there?
Paul Oehme: Right, and it’s a private street proposed.
Councilman Lundquist: Ah yeah, okay. But primarily that one, I mean we can make it 3 feet
wider but that would be it’s just too close to Audubon, is that why you chose to have a hammer
head there?
Paul Oehme: Too close to Audubon and it’s not recommended.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions for staff? Just one clarifying question with regard
to and I may have the applicant come back up. There was the issue, or Ms. Aanenson. We
talked about setbacks. You made mention in your report that it’s 25 feet setback from the right-
of-way. Whether it’s private right-of-way with a 40 or a public of 60.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah it’s the garage side.
Mayor Furlong: On the garage side. Except for the corners where it’s 25 and 20.
Kate Aanenson: And 20. 20 would be the non-garage side.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Because it gets very punitive when you’ve got that small a lot. It basically
would eliminate that lot.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: And I guess my question then is, as I thought and maybe this is a question then
for the applicant. It sounds like some of the property, some of the corner lots were going to have
a side garage.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: As opposed to the front. So are we going to see a differential between on that
corner lot with that house 5 feet out in front…
Kate Aanenson: That’s what he indicated we’re trying to work through those to see how that,
there will be some differentiation on that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, which is usually along the…okay but then the front of that house would
be 20 which would be 5 feet closer at a corner than all the other homes on the street. Is that what
we want?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Well, I think you know we’re going to have to look at that
carefully. Where those placements are and that’s what I think what Brian was talking about too.
Is how to address that because we want to encourage that, the side loaded, so looking at those
lots, it’s always our goal, the goal here is try to limit on this street here, try to get those interior
streets. So we’ve shown those driveways that have access onto the public street, there’s
opportunity to the corner.
Mayor Furlong: And maybe that’s going, first of all how many are we talking about and second,
you know I kind of like the idea of a side access as well, but I’m not.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I know what you’re saying. There could be one house that’s sitting
closer.
Mayor Furlong: And it’s right at the corner. Where you going to have naturally more traffic,
more cars.
Kate Aanenson: Well and I think too, the design speed on these streets, because that was one of
the things that we, you know you looked at too. It’s a quite neighborhood. So you don’t have
long stretches where you can pick up the speed. I’m not sure how many exactly we have for the
corner lots.
Brian Sullivan: It’s like 16 or 20 or somewhere in that range.
Mayor Furlong: So about 10%. Little over. About 10%.
Kate Aanenson: I understand what you’re saying and we can look at that to see how we can
work those through.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Brian Sullivan: We’re on this main road here. You know we have like a corner lot like right
here. These corner lots, you’re not going to have the corner house on those because we’re going
to have, these are going to be more a traditional road because they’re going to want to have a 3
car garage. This kind of the main road into our development here so you don’t want to have a lot
of 3 car garages on the main drive as we.
Mayor Furlong: So you’re saying that would be an example where you would have the side
garage?
Brian Sullivan: Where I would not have the side garage. Because the 3.
Mayor Furlong: Oh, that lot facing towards the.
Brian Sullivan: Yeah, 3 garage doors would be facing toward the street. I wouldn’t want that
there so, there will be situations mainly along this road. These corner lots along the main road
that I don’t, that we won’t, we might want to have the, I wouldn’t want to have the corner house
on those lots there.
Mayor Furlong: Are any of those then, are any of those situations where the, it’s on a private
street that it’s going to be the 20 foot setback?
Brian Sullivan: Yeah, on a private street the front of the house would be 20 feet.
Mayor Furlong: From the 40 foot right-of-way?
Brian Sullivan: From the 40 foot right-of-way. And with your garage on a corner would be the
25 feet. 25 feet. 25 feet from the right-of-way.
Kate Aanenson: That was I believe one of the drawings in the perspective that showed the
corner. I believe this one with the private street…
Brian Sullivan: This right here would show what the.
Kate Aanenson: So that would be the side loaded on the private. But what you’re missing in
context is I’m pushing forward on the other one. I think that’s something that maybe we
can…and then when it comes back for final plat, you can see how that. I understand…one
sticking out there.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, and I just want to clarify because I understand the concept but what does
that mean when we apply it is what I’m trying to get my arms around.
Kate Aanenson: Right…along the street.
Mayor Furlong: So we’ll take a look at that.
Kate Aanenson: Yep.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Impervious surface coverage. Overall it’s limited to 30. We’re taking
advantage of the open space in the Bluff Creek corridor as part of that 30, and if I read the data
information correctly, it said 27 is the current coverage ratio.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: On the lots themselves, did that calculation include that 600 square foot…
Kate Aanenson: That’s a good question. I’m sorry I missed that when I gave my presentation
but we tried to come up, and that’s something else we wanted in the homeowners covenants
because if everybody maximized their lot, which we don’t anticipate, but what we want to come
up with and I put this in the staff report. We looked at there’s approximately 600 square feet so
if everybody used that 600 square feet we’ll still be under it. It appears so. If they want to put,
what we’re asking them to put, also I talked about fences. Dog houses. We also want that to put,
go into their association rules and.
Councilman Labatt: And covenants?
Kate Aanenson: Well restrictions too, that there’s a certain percentage that they can maximize.
Mayor Furlong: And I guess that’s it. If 600 square feet for each of the homeowners is
allowable and they still meet the overall coverage.
Kate Aanenson: Yes, we believe that’s kind of what we did for the math.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Obviously we want to avoid is variance requests on impervious surface
because it’s smaller lots to begin with. So is there, how are we going to deal with that? Is there
a limit on a lot itself?
Kate Aanenson: That’s what I’m saying. The 600 per lot basis.
Mayor Furlong: Is going to be the implied.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Additional amount. So some of the footprints of the homes are different, are
they not?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes. So not everybody’s going put a deck on right away. Everybody’s
not going to have a dog run, those sort of things, so we’ll have to evaluate that. What we’ve
asked them to do is kind of come back with that minutia and we kind of worked that into the
system so there’s kind of a set rule that, how much square footage you can add on. To stay
within that percentage.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mayor Furlong: Without adding complexity, I think we should try to take a look at that now so
that we have those rules there, and if it’s in there…
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I did review that in the staff report but we’re asking them to put that also
in their bylaws and we’ll put that in as a condition of approval so it’s quantitative and
prescriptive so people know what they’re buying into. How much they have for additional yard
space.
Mayor Furlong: Another work with staff condition. Very good. Those are my questions. Any
other questions at this point?
Councilman Labatt: I’ve got one. Kate, the parking on the private streets. These are 28 foot
wide streets.
Kate Aanenson: Paved, yeah.
Councilman Labatt: 28. And if a neighbor has a party, and they have 20 people over and they
all come 2 per car, so we’ve got 10 cars parked out there. If they park on both sides of the road
you’re telling me that we can still get a vehicle through there?
Paul Oehme: Yes. I mean you can’t go in two directions but in one direction you’ll be able to.
Councilman Labatt: What is they park in both directions, then there’s no way for an ambulance
or a fire truck or a car to get through.
Paul Oehme: You can get one through but not two. Yeah, you can get one through.
Councilman Labatt: They can get one car through but if they park on both sides of the road.
Mayor Furlong: If they get 8 feet to a car.
Paul Oehme: Yeah, 8 foot to a car approximately, 10, 11 to 12 feet for a drive aisle.
Todd Gerhardt: Parking stall’s 9 by 18.
Paul Oehme: Yeah, so 9, 18, so 10 feet.
Councilman Labatt: So we’re okay with that?
Paul Oehme: 28 feet is a standard in some communities too for public streets. We happen to be
31 feet.
Mayor Furlong: Now our public streets in this development will be subject to the same no
parking rules.
Paul Oehme: That’s correct, right.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Councilman Labatt: But the private streets aren’t.
Kate Aanenson: That’s something we may want to look at.
Councilman Labatt: What’s to say if there’s a problem here and there’s private streets.
Enforcement wise there’s no, we have no stake. There’s nobody that can go on there and ticket
the cars and tow them other than the homeowners association.
Mayor Furlong: Well and I guess the question is, what do we do elsewhere in the city?
Councilman Labatt: I think we have a private, now don’t get me wrong. I like what I see. I’m
just.
Mayor Furlong: It’s something to look into.
Councilman Labatt: This is only preliminary right?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, and again some of the stuff we put in that we need to look at for the next
level that we talk about are some of those details.
Councilman Labatt: Okay, can you look at it?
Kate Aanenson: Yep. I think that’s a good point, yeah. And again, that’s going to be the
association that’s going to plow those streets but they’re also going to want to get people off so
they can get to their houses but we can put a time period that they get it plowed and all those sort
of things.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. And then my only other comment is, I’m with you Brian on your
thinking on this. That it’s a great subdivision. It looks like. It’s laid out nice. It does a nice job
to preserve things. At the same we should think what’s the entrance to the east. And I look at
going back to what we went through last year with Yoberry Farms where we had Longacres
coming in and Highover coming down and they both had touchdown spots so we had to
maneuver things and I mean we’re not reinventing the wheel here.
Councilman Lundquist: This is longer than my cul-de-sac.
Councilman Labatt: So those are my comments. You know, it’s, the parking thing I wanted to
talk about and.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other thoughts, comments.
Councilman Lundquist: Todd, you’ve been over there all night. How about approximate
distance from let’s say the middle of the development which is about where the totlot is to the
park that’s down on Peterson’s project.
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Todd Hoffman: Approximately half a mile.
Councilman Lundquist: You wouldn’t happen to have a map, somebody wouldn’t happen to
have map that shows the whole area. There you go. It’s the yellow area. Okay.
Todd Hoffman: This would be the public park and approximately half of the Preserve
development is within the one half mile service area to that location.
Councilman Lundquist: And then the other half will be to the school when the school gets built.
Todd Hoffman: To the school or utilizing the association facility.
Councilman Lundquist: And then we have a trail connection from this development down to the
park there?
Todd Hoffman: Yeah, you’ll either take the street trails or the creek trail, and then down to the
park.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay. And are you guys getting nervous as we continue to put these
private parks in there, that we’re going to be in a Johnson situation someday where the hoa’s are
going to get tired of taking care of them and we’re going to have to absorb them?
Todd Hoffman: That has occurred on occasion. Not in the recent past but there’s a couple parks
in the city that have been that way. This small a size, probably something that we wouldn’t
consider taking over at a future date.
Mayor Furlong: Something we probably would not take?
Todd Hoffman: Would not. They would have to go ahead and resolve that conflict internally. If
it ever arises.
Mayor Furlong: I am responsible for the weeds.
Councilman Lundquist: And mulch too.
Councilman Labatt: And mulch inspector.
Mayor Furlong: That’s right. Okay. Other thoughts or comments on the overall development.
Councilman Lundquist.
Councilman Lundquist: I think as Mr. Herbst stated, that it’s been a process as we go through
and it’s been, you know each one of these has it’s unique issues and because they’re developing
kind of one at a time, rather than all together and things have gone, that there’s always going to
be some conflicts and some other things going on, but either with not knowing exactly what’s
going to happen to the east or to the west. We’ve talked a lot about you know Mr. Dorsey has
done a nice job of presenting his issues and obviously we’ve been talking about a lot of that and
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City Council Meeting – May 8, 2006
Mr. Fox to the east. You know to the west we’ve got a property to be developed eventually as
well too, that we’ve got to be cognizant of, so I’m looking at that also. And as Mr. Labatt said
before, I think we’ve done a good job there of trying to minimize those physical constraints of,
because obviously to the east and to the west now, if we approve this layout, then that is a touch
down point that will have to be matched regardless of what that development looks like. But in
terms of restriction, that’s about it right now and I think Mr. Dorsey makes some fine points of
you know possibilities and potentials but right now, we did the Peterson and Town and Country
piece on the property line because we knew that Peterson was there. We saw the preliminaries.
We had the design. We had a chance to look at that, and you know not knowing what’s going to
happen on that east property, I’m not comfortable saying let’s put a road anywhere on that east
regardless of what happens there now because I wouldn’t be comfortable putting it on the
property line now because that may not only affect the Pemtom but it might affect what goes on
to the east in the future as well, not knowing that, so I think I’d just as soon minimize the impacts
to the east and the west, which this does with that one physical point there, and look at that. I’m
glad to see the, something other than a townhouse. I mean these are still houses on a small lot
but it preserves a lot of stuff so that’s good to see and you know this is an area, it’s still going to
be very nice when we get down with all that open space so, I like that as well, and I like the
difference in architecture too. It’s also nice to see some break up there rather than boxes where
we change a few small things here and there so, I’m with Councilman Peterson and Mayor on
let’s look at some, you know when we get further into the details on some of the color stuff and
some of the you know, those architectural things to preserve that, but I’m confident that Mr.
Herbst will do, and Ryland will do a good job there. Dan’s got a good track record. I’m sure he
wants to preserve that so, overall I think I’m in favor. I’m glad that, I think we’ve gotten to this
stage on one of these where we might get it through on the first time instead of having it come
back in 2 or 3 weeks and go after it again so. Not without issues certainly, and as we go forward
with the rest of these, to the east and west, no doubt we will have similar issues going along with
it. Hopefully I think we’re kind of learning as we go what to watch out for and what to look out
for so, there will be things coming up obviously to the east and west. We’ll deal with them when
they get there but again this one, about all we can do to minimize the impact on the surrounding
properties, so I’m comfortable at the stage we’re at.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Councilman Peterson.
Councilman Peterson: I don’t have much to disagree with Councilman Lundquist’s perspective.
I think that my adjective was the what if’s. We’re dealing with what if’s tonight and there’s a
point where you just can’t, you have to make a decision, and there are so many what if’s on the
east side yet that for us to step back and say we have to leave everything to the east and you
know, or let me put it differently. For us to decide, I came in tonight thinking well we have to
decide where the north/south goes and I was uncomfortable with that, and clearly what I’ve
heard tonight is we don’t have to, nor should we. There’s an inference now that there’s a
plausible space connecting to Sunset. I’m not at all convinced that’s the right place to put it, but
I don’t have to make that decision tonight. And to that end, if the north/south collector I think
will be back on another night deciding where that would go, if it goes, and I think that is better
left for another night. To build that south, you know I’ll rewind a bit. Again I am concerned
about density. I think this is, what makes me feel about this site is, you know it is somewhat
unique to the area and it’s not a huge development. It’s not 500 of these, and that makes me feel
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a lot better in the size and scope of it. And I think if we address some of the minor things that we
already talked about on some of the architectural and colors and that, that will relieve many of
my concerns so I’m comfortable moving forward with this, being sensitive to the issues already
discussed so. With that said I’d look for other comments.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anything else?
Councilman Labatt: Well I said mine. I just would agree with Brian and Craig with their
comments and it is a nice development and it’s, I think it’s, it’s going to be a nice addition to our
city in the south end.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. I won’t repeat the comments made. I concur generally with
those of councilman, all of them. Councilman Lundquist, Labatt and Peterson. And I will say
that when I was first presented or saw this development a number of weeks ago, maybe even
months ago now, I guess what I would best describe my reaction is guarded. It was not
something from a density standpoint. Mr. Gerhardt’s nodding his head up and down. We’ve had
more than one conversation on this as we try to understand what’s really being proposed here,
and in looking at and listening and taking into account, not only the presentation tonight but what
occurred at the Planning Commission. This is something that I’ve gained good comfort with. I
think there’s issues. We’ve talked about them tonight and setbacks, densities. Those are things
that we talk about all throughout this area. But in terms of the product that is being proposed
here, it is unique. I like uniqueness from a standpoint that it’s not more of the same, and I think
that’s where this council struggled a little bit recently, and but doing something different is
helpful and it makes it easier in the end to be able to move forward with it. I think that the layout
here, in terms of the roads, Councilman Lundquist I think said it best. The points at which this
development is touching other neighboring properties, we have one point I think with each of the
neighboring properties, but for the Peterson property to the south, and that point on the east is
clearly to be able to gain access to the Jeurissen property I believe it is over there. But a minimal
impact but nonetheless something that this city has done many times over the years. Recently
with Plowshares that was mentioned up to the north. We did it with Plowshares development on
the old Mancino property. In fact it was a development that went through with the extension of
Lake Lucy Road. Manchester if I’m not mistaken, that was stubbed up to that property that then
created that connection. That was something that the developer had to deal with and they
connected it and having driven through that connection the other day, just to see how things were
going, it flows. So it’s something that happens. I think running a road along the entire border,
Councilman Lundquist I think said it best, would be more restrictive to the development to the
east than a single road going in. And for reasons stated tonight here by the staff, in terms of
where the best place is, we don’t have to decide tonight but I can understand why there are
arguments that say the best place is not at this development here so. I’m comfortable moving
forward with trying to create a long list of work with staffs that we can enclose in here and to
make sure we’re all comfortable with that and get that included at this time. But I’m confident
based upon the experience that we’ve had with Mr. Herbst and Pemtom that that can be a long
list but it’s nothing on there that’s generally not be accomplished and so that provides some trust
and confidence there. That these issues, minor in the overall picture, can still be addressed. So
I’m comfortable with moving forward tonight, as we put something together and I think that this
will be a unique development. It’s a nice neighborhood within our city, to compliment the other
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developments that we’ve already approved and those that we will likely see going forward. Any
other comments or discussion? The motion I believe starts on.
Councilman Lundquist: 46.
Mayor Furlong: Page 46 and just for clarification here, there’s a couple of items, and Ms.
Aanenson, to make sure I get these correctly. The motion, or condition number 60 should include
Lots 1 through 5, not just Lot 1.
Kate Aanenson: I’d like to get some clarification on 60, 61 and 62. And that’s the park
commission’s recommendation and we have in our condition of approval, 31 that says that we
work with the staff to discuss eliminating 1 to 2. I think there’s concurrence on that but we’re
negotiating on those outlots 1 through 5.
Mayor Furlong: So we want to keep, so you’re saying that there’s some conflict with those?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, because the other one says they’re eliminated and you know, so if you
eliminate it, then we’ve kind of…
Mayor Furlong: 31 provides better.
Kate Aanenson: Right, so I think 31 works better, right.
Mayor Furlong: So what do we have to do? Which one is that?
Kate Aanenson: I think right now, if we just take 60, 61 and 62, and 63. Let’s see. Those are
just recommendations.
Mayor Furlong: Do you believe that they’re covered already…
Kate Aanenson: They are covered. We already have full park and trail fees in there already, and
then clearly if we want to leave in 63, because we do want those conveyed as public property,
and that would be A, B, L and N, those outlots. We would want those conveyed as.
Mayor Furlong: So strike H and insert N.
Kate Aanenson: Yep. And then if we just put 60.
Mayor Furlong: So you’re saying 60, 61 and 62 are already covered in the other conditions?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. I think we should just strike those out because they conflict with our
ability to negotiate to get that. 61?
Todd Hoffman: The trail.
Kate Aanenson: Oh, the trail construction, I’m sorry. 61 is probably not.
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Mayor Furlong: 61 is.
Kate Aanenson: Yep, so you want it in, correct.
Councilman Lundquist: So you want 60 and 62 out.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. And that gives us the ability to negotiate with the developer
right now. And then just one other point of clarification. Just so, the things that you wanted us
to add and this may be 64. Maybe you were just going to do this Mayor, but what I’ve got from
my notes is attention to the garage facades, including percentage of windows with color palettes,
a minimum of four, that they come back with those. That we discuss private street, parking,
maintenance and parking.
Mayor Furlong: And winter parking?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, winter parking. Areas of future buildable area. That those be covered in,
not only covenants but in the development standards itself. And then setbacks on the corner lots.
And then the hammer head at Outlot, or the end of street.
Mayor Furlong: Yes, and I just had turn around on all private streets…
Kate Aanenson: That’s fine, then we’ve got it covered.
Mayor Furlong: Whatever the, yep.
Kate Aanenson: Is that what you had?
Mayor Furlong: That was my list. Anybody else have anything to add to that? That would be
condition.
Councilman Lundquist: 64.
Councilman Peterson: But we’re deleting, this would be.
Councilman Lundquist: It still has to be 64.
Todd Gerhardt: It doesn’t have to be.
Mayor Furlong: We can do anything, right Roger?
Roger Knutson: That’s right Mayor.
Todd Gerhardt: Not that it would be successful.
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Mayor Furlong: That’s out of order. Let’s move forward now with the motion. Would
somebody like to state a motion please.
Councilman Labatt: Mayor I would recommend that we approve the rezoning of the land within
the plat for The Preserve from Agricultural Estate, A2, subject to the following plans dated 3-17-
06, and the conditions 1 through 64 with deletion of 60 and 62. And 63 should be amended to
changing the H to N. 64 will be the motion or the condition that Kate just stated with the list of
to do’s.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Roger Knutson: Mayor? That also includes approval of the conditional use permit?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Roger Knutson: And adopting the findings of fact as presented by the Planning Commission as
your own findings.
Councilman Labatt: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Lundquist: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion? Questions or
clarifications. Hearing none, let’s proceed with the vote.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded that the City Council approve
the Rezoning of the land within the Plat for The Preserve from Agricultural Estate District,
A2 to Planned Unit Development-Residential, PUD-R; approval of a Conditional Use
Permit to permit development within the Bluff Creek Overlay District and alterations
within the flood plain; and approval of the Preliminary Plat for “The Preserve” creating
155 lots, 15 outlots and right-of-way for public streets, plans prepared by Westwood
Professional Services, Inc., dated 3-17-06, subject to the following conditions:
1.The drainage and utility easement over the northern portion of Lift Station #24 must be
vacated and filed upon final approval of the final plat.
2.The “Existing Conditions” plan must be revised to show the drainage and utility easement
that was granted to the City and contain trunk sanitary sewer and watermain.
3.Prior to City Council consideration of the final plat, the applicant must provide
documentation indicating that the proposed right-of-way for Lyman Boulevard meets Carver
County’s requirement.
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4.The grading plan must identify the existing and proposed 100-year floodplain.
5.Due to the anticipated timing of the final plat with respect to the timing of formal approvals
from FEMA, the proposed lots that are within the current floodplain may be preliminary
platted subject to FEMA approval of the LOMR.
6.Any grading within the floodplain will require a Conditional Use Permit.
7.Catch basins on each side of all public streets must be no more than 300 feet apart.
8.The proposed outlet for Wetland A must lie along the edge of the wetland.
9.The storm sewer from Pond 1 must outlet to the wetland north of Pond 2 in order to maintain
hydrology to the wetland.
10.Storm sewer within Street J must be rerouted through the sideyards within Block 3 and outlet
to Pond 2.
11.Hydraulic calculations must be submitted with the final plat submittals.
12.The legend on the final grading plan must identify the lowest floor elevation.
13.All buildings must be demolished before the second phase.
14.The final grading plan must show the top and bottom of wall elevations.
15.Any retaining wall four feet high or taller requires a building permit and must be designed by
an Engineer registered in the State of Minnesota.
16.The developer must work with staff to find the preferred sanitary sewer alignment west of
Block 3 prior to City Council consideration of the final plat.
17.The plan must be revised to show an 18-inch diameter watermain on the south side of Lyman
Boulevard to the east property line.
18.The developer’s engineer must submit a separate cost estimate for the watermain oversizing
along Lyman Boulevard with the final plat submittals.
19.To the maximum extent practicable, the trail along the east side of Bluff Creek must be
within close proximity of the manholes for the existing trunk sanitary sewer.
20.The lowest floor elevation of each unit must be shown on the utility plan.
21.The existing well and septic system must be properly removed and abandoned during site
grading and utility installation.
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22.The developer must pay $15,776 in cash with the final plat for the pro-rated cost for the
preparation of the 2005 MUSA AUAR.
23.The outstanding assessments – $310,999.03 for 2005 MUSA roads and water, and
$162,976.08 for Highway 101/Lyman Boulevard/Highway 312/Highway 212 must be paid
with the final plat or reassessed to the lots and outlots for future development.
24.Each new lot is subject to the sanitary sewer and water hookup charges. These fees are
collected with the building permit and are based on the rates in effect at the time of building
permit application. The party applying for the building permit is responsible for payment of
these fees.
25.The City will construct Bluff Creek Boulevard Improvements to serve the development in
conjunction with public improvement project No. 06-05. The property within the plat will be
specially assessed for this project.
26.The development is subject to the arterial collector fee, which must be paid in cash with the
final plat.
27.Streets F and K must extend past Lot 6, Block 13 and Lot 1, Block 17, respectively to
provide adequate space for a vehicle to back out of the driveway and turn into the street.
28.Curbs on public streets will be high-back; curbs on private streets will be surmountable.
29.The sidewalk along the north side of Street H between Street A and Street I, and along the
north side of Street E must be eliminated.
30.Sidewalks adjacent to private streets and within privately owned outlots can be used by the
public.
31.The applicant will work with staff to discuss eliminatingLots 1 and 2, Block 11, and Lots 1
through 5, Block 1.
32.The applicant shall revise the plan design to ensure adequate hydrology for Wetland 4 in the
post-development condition.
33.If the applicant wishes to pursue an exemption for impact to Wetland A, the applicant shall
furnish information to substantiate the exemption request. The applicant is advised that, even
if impacts would be exempt from WCA, they may not be exempt from the requirements of
the Army Corps of Engineers.
34.A wetland buffer with a minimum width of 16.5 feet shall be maintained around all wetlands
and wetland mitigation areas. Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in
accordance with the City’s wetland ordinance. The applicant shall install wetland buffer edge
signs, under the direction of City staff, before construction begins and shall pay the City $20 per
sign. All structures shall maintain a setback of at least 40 feet from the wetland buffer edge.
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35.All structures shall maintain a 50-foot setback from the ordinary high water level of Bluff
Creek. All structures shall maintain a minimum 40-foot setback from the primary corridor.
No alterations shall occur within the primary corridor or within the first 20 feet of the setback
from the primary corridor. The 50-foot setback, primary corridor boundary, 40-foot structure
setback and 20-foot grading setback shall be shown on the plans.
36.The applicant shall provide details for the proposed trail crossing of Bluff Creek. Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources (DNR) permits shall be obtained for all creek crossings. In
addition, the trail alignment shall be revised to cross Bluff Creek in the same location as the
sanitary sewer crossing. Immediately south of the creek crossing, the trail intersection shall
be redesigned to avoid impact to the trees.
37.The plans shall be revised to provide a lower EOF for Wetland A and a path to the west for
excess water that will not threaten proposed structures.
38.The EOF path for Pond 1 shall be revised to provide a more direct EOF route from Pond 1 to
Wetland 4.
39.The proposed sanitary sewer and storm sewer outlet in the vicinity of Pond 2 shall be revised
to ensure: 1. The runoff from the outlet will not compromise the integrity of the sanitary
sewer; and 2. The sanitary sewer is not located below the normal water level (NWL) of Pond
2.
40.The outfall from Pond 3 shall not outlet upslope of the proposed trail.
41.The applicant shall clarify the avoidance of the drainageway to be preserved during the
construction of Pond 4 and, if possible, redesign the pond to provide additional storage and
treatment in lieu of avoiding the drainageway.
42.Pond 5 shall be constructed prior to the construction of all the areas that drain to it.
43.Drainage and utility easements (minimum 20 feet in width) shall be provided over all
existing wetlands, wetland mitigation areas, buffer areas used as PVC and storm water ponds.
44.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All
exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round,
according to the following table of slopes and time frames:
Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can
Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area
10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.)
Flatter than 10:1 21 days
These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed
soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter
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system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man
made systems that discharge to a surface water.
45.Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street
sweeping as-needed.
46.The applicant shall be proactive in addressing potential run-on problems in the vicinity of the
extreme southeast corner of the property. This would potentially involve vertically tracking
equipment up and down the graded faces of the slope to increase roughness and prevent rilling.
Similar practices shall be used behind the homes along the central part of Outlot A.
47.At this time, the estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at the time of final plat
recording, is $242,760.
48.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g.,
Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES
Phase II Construction Site Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for
dewatering), Army Corps of Engineers, Minnesota Department of Transportation, Minnesota
Department of Health) and comply with their conditions of approval.
49.The applicant shall demonstrate that the outlet pipe installation and elevation will not impact
the wetland.
50.If recommended by the Park and Recreation Commission, park fees shall be paid as per City
ordinance at the rate of final platting.
51.Tree protection fencing shall be installed prior to construction around all areas designated for
preservation and/or at the edge of proposed grading limits.
52.A walk-through inspection of the silt/tree preservation fence shall be required prior to
construction.
53.No burning permits shall be issued for tree removal. All trees removed on site shall be
chipped and used on site or hauled off.
54.A turf plan shall be submitted to the City indicating the location of sod and seeding areas.
55.Buffer plantings shall be installed along the east property line in the rear yards of Lots 7
through 16, Block 3 and Lots 1 through 5, Block 10.
56.Applicant shall remove Emerald Queen Norway maple from the planting schedule. The
applicant shall substitute another species with approval from the City.
57.A conservation easement shall be recorded over Outlot A.
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58.The developer shall work with staff to develop and install appropriate markers at lot lines to
demarcate the primary zone.
59.The applicant shall submit a plan for the revegetation of any areas of grading within Outlot
A. The plan shall incorporate native plants and be consistent with the City’s Bluff Creek
Natural Resources Management Plan Appendix C. Special attention should be paid to areas
with steep slopes (greater than 3:1). Staff recommends that the Hill Prairie planting list be
used for the restoration.”
60. The applicant shall provide all design, engineering, construction and testing services
required of the “Bluff Creek Trail.” All construction documents shall be delivered to the
Park and Recreation Director and City Engineer for approval prior to the initiation of each
phase of construction. The trail shall be 10 feet in width, surfaced with bituminous material
and constructed to meet all city specifications. The applicant shall be reimbursed for the
actual cost of construction materials for the Bluff Creek Trail. This reimbursement payment
shall be made upon completion and acceptance of the trail and receipt of an invoice
documenting the actual costs for the construction materials utilized in its construction.
61. Outlots A, B, L and N be conveyed to the city as public property by warranty deed.
62. The following items are to be addressed at final plat:
?
Attention to garage door facades including n percent of doors with windows
?
Color palate ( 4 minimum)
?
Private streets and sidewalks,
?
Percentage of future boilable area,
?
Setbacks on corner lots
?
Turnarounds at the end of private streets.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
None.
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
Mayor Furlong: It was good to see library hours being expanded.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: They’re open now I believe on Sundays as well.
Todd Gerhardt: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: They’re open and more stable hours on the rest of the days of the week too so,
that’s good. Also good to use the usage. Any other discussion on the correspondence packet? If
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not is there any other business to come before the council this evening. Seeing none, is there a
motion to adjourn?
Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to adjourn the meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 10:25
p.m..
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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