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CC 2003 03 10CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL RF~ULAR MF.~TING MARCH 10, 2003 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBER~ PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman Lundquist, Councilman Ayott~, and Councilman Peterson CoUNCIL MEMBEI~ ABSENT: Councilman Laba~ STAFF PRF_~ENT: Todd Gerhardt, Tom Scott, Teresa Burgess, Matt Saam, Todd Ho~ Kate Aanenson, Sharmeen Al-laff and Justin Miller PUBLIC PRESENT FQR ALL ITEM~: Jason Kayafi Alison Blackowiak lanet & Jerry Paulsen Ryan Koepsell 8715 Valley View Place Planning Commission 7305 Laredo Drive 1110 Dove Court CONSENT AGENDA: approve the following recommendations: Coundlman Peterson moved, Coun~lm~n Ayotte seconded to consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's Approval of Lake Ann Beach Services Cxmtmct, Minnetonka Community Education Services. b. Resolution ~e2003-28: Reject Bids, Ashling Meadows 2~ Addition Utility Extension, Project (Y2-07A. Resolution ~e200~29: Approval of Resol~on Supporting Legislative Action in Approving Funding for the Conslruction of New Highway 312. d. Resolution ~2003-30: Accept Conveyance of Lot 1, Block 2, Schneider Park from the Economic Development Authority. gl Approval of Minutes: - City Council Minutes dated February 24, 2003 - City Council Work Session Minutes dated February 24, 2003 Receive Commission Minutes: - Planning Commission Minutes dated February 18, 2003 -Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated February 25, 2003 h. Resolution ~R3-31: Approval of Change Order No. 5, Chanhassen Library Project. Approval of Site Plan for a 45,200 sq. fL Addition with Variances; Located at the Northwest Comer of Dell Road and I-rtghway 5, Opus Northw~ I2A7,, Banta Direct Marketing Group. City Council Meeting -Marela 10, 2003 AH voted in favor and the motion carried nnanlmoualy with a vote of 4 to 0. l(e). AWARD OF CONTRA~?I', L~IFT STATIQN I IMPRQyEMENTS. PROJEC~ 01- 11._:. Councilman Lundquist: Mr. Mayor, the reason that I asked for that to be removed is for just some direction, clarification Teresa on where this is being funded. What the funding source for this is. Teresa Burgess: The funding source for this item is the utility fund. The water sanitary sewer utility fund, and we will be bringing before the council in mid-year a revised CIP for that, for the water and the sanitary sewer i .mprovements based on what we will be doing with water treatment. That will change all of those alignments. Right now we do not have anything scheduled for sanitary sewer improvements in 2003, but we do have $500,000 for water system i ~mpmvements in 2003. We'd be re-evaluating that project sometime later in the year. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. So this would just offset a portion of those other funds that you have in the CIP for the utility fund. Teresa Burgess: When we bring that amen~t forward we would re-work the entire CIP but for now we're proposing to reduce the $500,000 by what this project will cost Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Teresa Burgess: But we may come forward and ask for more or less depending on what happens with water treaunent. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Okay? Any other questions on this item? If there's not, is there a motion to approve or follow staff's recommendation to approve? Councilman Lundquist: Motion to approve to award Contract for lift station #1 i .ml'govements to GM Contracting Inc in the amount of $113,341.39. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? Councilman Peters#n: Second. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the motion? Resolution ~2003-32: Coundinmn Lundquist moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to approve to award contract for I.i1~ Station #1 improvements to GM Contracting Ine in the amount of $113r341.39. AH voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of4to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. Mayor Furlong: We're fortunate this evening to have our Minnesota Sta~ Representative, Representative Joe Hoppe with us this evening who is here tonight and would like to say a few words so good evening Representative Hoppe. City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Representative Joe Hoppe: Thanks Mr. Mayor. I will keep thi~ brief and answer any questions I can have, and Fd also like to start off by apologizing. Senator Ortman was going to be here with me but she was responsible for getting a caucus meeting going with her Republican Senate colleagues and they agreed to have it, and then wanted to have it tonight so she was stuck having to go. A couple of the things we've been working on. Highway 212 has taken up a lot of time. That's probably the main thing that's of interest here, other than the slight LGA cuts that we're looking at. With that there's one good thing about the budget taking up so much of our time. The legislature, both the House and the Senate have introduced I'm thinking it's about half of the normal number of bills, which I think is a good thing. So that has preoccupied people. There's at least some good to come out of it. It's a demanding job. It takes a lot of time. I'm new at iL I don't have all the answers but it's fun. I enjoy it and it's a great place to go work and a great responsibility and it's fun. As far as the LGA and the cuts go, this might not go over very well but I know that Chanhassen has been impacted by it but in Carver County and in Chauhassen we're more fortunate than a lot of other cities. We're findi~ out now that a lot of cities, n~ Minnesota, outstate Minnesota are not necessarily tem'bly well run, and that's, you know you can make your arguments one way or another on thai. But there are an awful lot of cities and local governments across the state that are feeling the pain much more than we are in Carver County and in Chanhassen so we do realize, in fact I left a meeting tonight where one of the things we were discussing was the fact that the government's cuts tend to penalize fast growing, typically well mn cities a lillle bit more than they penalize some of the others. You know if you got a lot of money and spent it all, you know you're getting hurt but the formula that they worked out penalizes us a little bit more. We realize thaL We're trying to work out some of those inequities but realistically there's probably not a lot that's going to change between what the Governor's recommended budget is and what the final product will be so. I hope that was brief enough. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them. Councilman Lundquist: Representative Hoppe, the Governor's budget I think we're all, especially this council and the City, we were prepared for that and took steps to that. The thing that concerns me the most is the other noise going on in the House and Senate around levy limits and bonding restrictions and the rest of the things that would be especially detrimental to cities like Chanhassen that are growing fast and all. I'd like to hear your thoughts on how you see the, I feel like we're getting squeezed from both ends I guess is the way to sum it up. Take away our LGA and then tell us we can't do certain bonding projects and don't let us nm our cities the way we think we should nm our cities. Representative Joe Hoppe: The short answer is I agree. I like the Governor. I don't 100 percent agree with everything in the way he did the budget. I think that the more you can give local control to local units of govemrrumt, generally the better off you're going to be. I think what hl~' s trying to guard against is cities that will, if flxa~ are no limits on, some of the cities that I mentioned earlier that spend everything they get are just going to raise taxes as much as they possibly can and mm around and blame probably the legislature, and/or the Governor. When you look at Chanhassen and Chaska and the cities around here, we're being penalized a little bit for a lot for that, and there are a lot of cities in outstate Minnesota that given the chance would raise their taxes substantially on top of taxes having gone up substantially the last few years. So I'm not in favor of it. I'm still not entirely convinced that's what we need to do but the Governor and Dan McElroy the finance commissioner and some other pretty sharp people think that that's the best way to keep the burden of new taxes off of the taxpayers of the State so I'm, he is the Governor and I can be see being worn around to his position but to start with in principle I agree with you and I think long term, what's going to come put of this is a ebange in the way the LGA funding is done and we're going to get it to the point where there's, where state money is less of a City Council Meeting - March 10, 2(X)3 percentage for cities and we take off some of the handcuffs and let well nm cities continue to be well nm, and if a city's not well nm, the voters should go in and straighten it out. Councilman Lundquistz Thanks for your comments. Mayor Furlong: Any other comments or questions7 Thank you. Representative Hoppe, thanks for coming this evening and good luck in St. Paul. Representative Joe Hoppe: I will come back and bring Senator Ortman with me and speak at more length when we have more concrete details about the budget. I didn't want to take up too much of your time but we will be in touch. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Representative Ioe Hoppe: Have a good evening. Councilman Lundquist: Thanks. Mayor Furlong: We are in visitor presentations. This is an opportunity for residents and guests to address issues to the council so at this time we'll continue to have an opportunity for visitor presentations. Sir. Howard Jacobsen: Would this be an appropriate time to discuss an item farther down on the agenda? Mayor Furlong: Why don't you let us know what that, is there a particular item that you're, so that I can be aware of that. Could you st~ up to the microphone please sir. Howard Jacobsen: The award of bids for the City Commons. Mayor Furlong: That's fane. Why don't we take your comments at that time. Are there any other visitor, items for visitor presentations? Seeing none we'll close visitor presentations and move on on our agenda. PUBLIC HI~ARINC~: VACATION OF Ill~4A1NINC~ EASEMENT FOR ~(~]tNEIDER PARK 2~° ADDITION. Matt Saam: Thank you Mayor, council members. This is the vacation for the remaining easement, well for all of the easements and right-of-way for the area of Setmeider Park 2~ Addition for the area being platted as Schneider Park 2~a Addifiom Just so everyone's aware, this is the library and City Hall site. City hall is about right in hem, and the new h~ary building is being constructed fight now right out here. Back in May of 2002 the council approved this final plat and with that approved vacations of some of the easements on the property. The ones that staff knew about. Since then in preparing the final plat for reccaxting we had a rifle commi~ nm. When that came back we found a number of encumbrances on the property, specifically many easements that we were unaware of and fight-of-way doc~ that we were unaware of. As I said, in preparing this for recarding we sent it over to the County. They reviewed this up and said that we needed to take care of these encumbrances, meaning vacate them. Clean up the title so it's easier to record. Easier for the fim. n'e. I've been dealing with the City Attorney's office in doing this. They agree that we should clean up the title work and that's why we're here before you tonight All of the easements and right-of-way that we will be vacating we are, if we City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 need them, dedicating new easements and right-of-way on the plat so we will be covered. With that we're recommending approval of the vacation, rll be happy m take any questions. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Are there any questions for staff? Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council me~. Matt, did you get comments from Sergeant Olson prior to meeting tonight? Because he did express. Matt Saam: No I did not. Todd Gerhardt: He wanted m give the public safety view on this situation. The road is a cul-de- sac. He didn't see a lot of u'affic on the road so he wasn't too concerned about that. Matt Saarm Todd, if I could just interrupt. Is this the right item? We're on the library. Todd Gerhardt: Oh you're on the library, I'm sorry. Matt Saam: Vacating the library. Todd Gerhardt: I'm sorry. Wrong item- Matt Saarm That one's coming up though. Todd Gerhardt: Okay, sorry. Wrong item- Apologize. Busy night. Mayor Furlong: It is a busy night. Any other questions for the stuff? Okay. To the extent the City is the applicant, we will, unless the applicant has anything more to say, we'll move on and open up the public hearing at this time in regard to this matter. Is there anyone wishing to speak at the public hearing? If there is none, we'll close the comments from the public and bring it back to the council for discussion. Is thea~ any discussion on this matter from the council? No? If none, is there a motion? Councilman Peterson: I make a motion that the council approve a resolution vacating all of the existing easements and right-of-way as defined in the 8~oehed vacation description list. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? Councilman Lundquist: Second. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the motion? Resolution ~3~: Councilman Peterson moved, Co~ Lnndqui~ ~nded to approve the resolution vacating nll of the existing easements and right-of-way ns defined on the attached vacation description list. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. AWARD OF BII~: ~ CENTER ~QMMQN~ PROJECT. Todd Hoffumu: Thank you Mayor Furlong, members of the City Council. Februaxy 28~, that morning in the council chambers I opened bids, sealed bids for this project. There were four bidders for the City Center Commons project. Justin Miller witnessed the opening and recorded City Council Meeting- March 10, 2003 the results. LS Black Co~ Inc was the low bidder on the project. You should please note that the second lowest bidder, American Liberty Construction Inc, who I believe is ~.~sented here tonight, submitted a written document protesting consideration of the bid from LS Black on the grounds that they believed it to be defective. The City Attorney's office has found no validity in that claim and recommends approval of low bidder LS Black. The bidding schedule was included. A base bid, four add alternates and one deduct alternate. Add alternate number one, the relocation of the transformers, which are down on the corner of West 78m and Kerber Boulevard was deleted due to the complexity of that issue and negotiation needed with Xcel The low base bid of $637,423.13 is a competitive bid, coming in approximately $165,000 below the architect's estimate. We saw extremely competitive pricing in two areas. The concrete paving block and then the concrete modular wall. Under these conditions it's reco~d~ by the staff and the architect to accept add alternates 2, 3 and 4 in an amount totaling $32,323.36. And then briefly I'll go over those items. Add alternate 2 is priced at $1,719.25. That allows for sod along the boulevards, along Kerber and West 78a~ on the outside of the sidewalk. That area will get beat up during construction. It will be nice to sod that as a finished product. Add alternate 3 priced at $8,395.00 allows for the monet sign. It's a masonry sign which will be located right in this area on this plan here. A radius and I'll show you the sign, so you can see exactly what that is. It has a masonry footing underneath it and it's a block, or excuse me, a brick sign that matches the brick to the building to the south. Right hem. That shows a concrete footing and then the radius sign with the metal lettering. Third alternate, alternative number 4 in the amount of $22,209.11 allows for the full planting schedule to be included as a part of the park. Obviously we're dealing with really two things hem. Hard surfacing and then greenery or plantings so it's i ,mlx~'tant that we allow for that additional planting. Damon Farber and Associates, the architect has considerable experience working with LS Black Constructors and is pleased to recom~ them as a general contractor for the project. With that it's staff recommendation that the City Council award the City Center Commons project to LS Black Consmictors Inc at a base bid amount of $637,423.13, and that we accept add alternate numbers 2, 3 and 4 bringing the total award to $669,746.49. With that award, or if the council approves that, construction will begin in mid- May. I'd be glad to answer any questions of the council. Mayor Furlong: Questions for staff. Councilman Lundquist: Todd wondering, just specifics on the almmates first The monument sign. Did we go, the decision to go with a more extravagant sign than we have on the rest of our city parks where we just have a wooden sign that has the park name or whatever, is that the reasoning behind that7 Todd Hoffman: To fit into the design of the park. ~ust a regular wood sign located at this comer I don't think would do this site architectural justice if you would. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Anything else? Councilman Lundquist: No, we can go abe, ad. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Ayotte. Councilman Ayotte: If I may. We got a letter from Coleman, Hull and Van Vliet I suspect that's how it's pronounced, stating their position that they want to contest the bidding process. And we've gotten legal counsel to react to that, is my understanding. Is that right? City Council Meeting- March 10, 2003 Tom Scott: That's correct. Councilman Ayotte: Okay now, we got a l~er, did we send a letter? Is there something that responds to this letter so that we have something for our file to substantiate the basis by which we rex:ognize this as being a good and sound bid? Todd Hoffman: No there's not. If you want to enter that into the record I believe, or council can be pleased and happy to talk about it this evening. Todd Gerhardt: We can get a written opinion if you want to make that as a part of your motiom Councilman Ayotte: Could you talk a little louder please. Todd Gerhardt: If you wanted to get a written opinion from our attorneys basing their decisiom Councilman Ayotte: Well I'd like it for discussion. I believe it's probably be a wise thing but I'd like to hear from the other fellow councilmen what their view is. And you. Tom Scott: Sure. I'm certainly in a position to discuss the items that were raised in the letter. There were two items that were raised in the letter from the attorney for American Libel. One had to do with the absence of a notary signature on one of the bond instruments. Actually the notary that was notarizing the principle signature had put his stamp, his notary stamp on but for whatever reason hadn't actually signed his nax~ in the signature blank, and we're exlxemely comfortable that that type of defect is a minor defect which does not impact the validity of the bid. The second thing that's raised, and I guess the best way, what might be helpful to explain that one if you had the bid comparison sheets in front of you. In a doc~t you don't have as a part of your packet I believe is the actual bid sheet from the low bidder. But if you look at the, under the LS Black Construction category, if you go down to items 6Co), (c) and (d), which are the modular block wall. And then there's retaining modular block wall. Free standing modular block wall. Height variances. Do you see those items? 6. Okay. So if you look at those items and then if you look at the bid sheet, the individual bid sheet from LS Black Constriction you'll see what they did under 6(c) and (d) and that's why there's a blank, or you only have one nnmher for 6(b), (c) and (d) in your overall tabulation, is that they indicated for 6(c) and (d) included in 6(b), and the same for item (b), included in 6Co). And we are comfortable that it's clear that that indicated that the unit pricing for items 6(c) and 0(d) was the same unit price as they were bidding for 6(I)). The $21.00 per unit. So that was the other issue that was raised and we believe that it's clear and that that's not a defect which lead to disqualifying the bid. Councilman Ayotte: I think what you just said is they imbedded their numbers in another line and they didn't lowball. Is that? They imbedded their numbers for ~eae items in another area, and they didn't lowball. Tom Scorn I have no idea how the different bidders allocated their unit pricing. That's something that's completely at their discretion. Our inquiry is, is the bid clear as to what the unit price is for item 6(c) and 6(d) and we believe it's clear that those are $21.00 per unit~ Councilman Ayotte: And now since this old infantryman understands it, it is obviously clear but I just think Mayor that we ought to have something in written so that we have it to the file so that it can be substantiated in terms of having legal counsel cut on it, that's my only point~ Mayor Furlong: Okay. City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Ayotte: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other questions for staff? Mr. Hoff-man, one question. Source of funding for the funds hem in awarding the contract bids. Could you just indicate from where the money will be coming. Todd Hoffman: A majority of the funding will be out of park dedication, a dedicated fund for park and trail projects in the city, and then there will be some money coming out from the library project for work that was deleted from the library project and then included in this package. Mayor Furlong: For my clarification that the park and trail fund is not part of the regular budget or capital fund but it's a cash balance funds that are available. Todd Hoffman: Cash balance fired dedicated to these i .mya'ove~ts, types of i ,mpmve~ts. Councilman Lundquist: That's the fund that comes from the development fees for new housing? That's not a levied fund, is it? Todd Hoffman: No. It's development fees for both residential and commercial and industrial properties in the city. And annually that fund generates approximately $400,~, give or take per year. Councilman Peterson: And it's also i ,mportant to note that we can't use those funds for any other item other than parks so it's not something that we ~ be using for the general fund for, I think the point being that we're, I think all of us on this council are reticent to be approving a relatively costly park based upon the currant budget constraints, but these are funds that are already allocated, already there that we can't use for anything else so, that being said. Mayor Furlong: Okay. This is not a public hearing but the gentleman indicated he'd lilm to speak to this issue. This would be a good time if you'd like to sddress the council. Howard Jacobson: My name's Howard Jacobsom I'm the president of American La~oe~ Construction. I reside at 6606 Kings View Lane in Maple Cax)ve and I just have a few comments about our protest for the bid. The line items on the bid form that LS Black failed to fill in properly, the instructions are very clear in the iusmaefions to biddews that every line item is to be filled in. If there's any question about the intent of what LS Black was bidding, obviously it's not a complete bid. It's open for intewpmtafion, the~fore it's open for argument at a later date if they're awarded the contract. They can always come back and say that isn't what we meant to do. The idea of using all the different line items on the bid forms is to make it perfectly clear what the cost of each item is, and what the quantity is and what the cone's bidding. LS Black failed to do that. As far as not signing or notarizing properly the bid bond, this argument can be used in both directions. If they had a bid that they wanted to withdraw, they could just as easily argue that our bid bond was not properly executed, therefore it's not valid. So by allowing a minor defect quote, you're setting a precedence that signatures and those sort of ~ execution of simple documents is acceptable for the City of Chanhassen. I don't think eitlxa' one of ~ points should be allowed and you should award it to the second most responsive bidder, American Liberty. Any questions? Mayor Furlong: Questions? Is there any discussion at the council level with regard to the proposal? City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Ayotte: I'd like to make the point in my view that the low biaa_~ did fill in the lines. Just didn't fill it in with numbers, l~trst of all it is filled in. Number two, I think it would not be prudent on the part of this council, in my view, to not go with the numbers simply because of the economic climate we're in. And to afl~ a dollar value to the administrative error, that's a pretty good buy and that's my view. I just want to share that. Thank you Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Other comments or discussion? I know that this is a culmination of a lot of effort that was put in by a group, a committee if I'm not mistaken, Todd, with the design over a long period of time and a lot of effort' s been put in by a lot of people. This is going to be a nice, a nice addition to our city and very much con~liment city hall and the library. Again what gives me some comfort in moving forward at this time, with the issues mentioned earlier by Councilman Peterson with regard to the source of funding, and the restrictions on those funds to use it for parks, that those funds axe sitting there in cash right now and it gives us an oppommity really to complete this area of the downtown so, that's my thoughts. Any other discussion? ff not, is there a motion from council? Councilman Lundquist: Motion to award the contract for the City Center Commons project to LS Black Constructors Inc at a base bid amount of $637,423.13, and accept add alternates 2, 3 and 4, bringing the total award to $669,746.49. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? Councilman Ayotte: Second. Mayor Furlong: Is there any discussion on the motion? Resolution g2003-34: Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to award the contract for the City Center Commons project to LS Black Constructors Inc at a base bid amount of $637,423.13, and accept add alternates 2, 3 and 4, bringing the total award to $669,746A9. All voted In favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4to0. AWARD OF' BID~: DEMOLITION OF OLD BANK BUll.DING. Todd Hoffman: Thank you Mayor Furlong, members of the City Council. In caxler to initiate this work coming up in mid-May we need to demolish the old bank building which is currently situated directly outside of the front door. It's being used as a Kraus-Anderson construction headquarters until March 15~, give or take a week or two. Once they move out, the low bidd~ here Veit Companies plans on moving in and taking the building down in the time period of April 1 to April 30~, making way for the LS Black Constmc~ to move in. We bid, we took this on a quote basis from four different companies. We had a base bid and then less back filling. The recommendation is to accept the quote from Veit Companies less back fillinE in the amount of $23,549. That includes removing the building, all of the hard surface around the suuctu~ the curb, the sidewalks, four trees around the building which will be removed, hazardous materials, removal of the building itself, two story pre-stre~ floor, a two story vault that's incl-dcd in the structure, 16 reinforced concrete with a vault door, and moving all of that material off site and then capping the utilities which will incl-d_e electri~ and plumbing and sewer and water. So with that it's recommended that Veit be approved as the conlxact~ demolition the old bank building at an amount of $23,549 and that's the extent of my report. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions? City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Lundquist: Todd the reason that we did not, with the less back filling, what was the reasoning behind not doing the back filling? Todd Hoffman: It's our opinion that we can have that done more efficiently...for less money through the upcoming contract if we need to do it at all. So with the grading that they move on site, there will be some cutting that takes place to start off with so we won't have to, some of the material we would be filling, we'd be taking right back out. So we're just going to include that as a part of the future project. Councilman Lundquist: So that would be included in the project that we just approved for the park? Is that what you're saying? Todd Hoffrnan: Correct. Depending on, there may be some additional material in the back filling area. There's a, or there's a grading item, back fill itexn that's included in that project. It depends on the quantifies exactly. That will come into play the~e so. Councilman Lundquist: Okay, so right now as we see it, we're hoping or estimating that the City Center Commons project, there's enough dirt there to fill in the hole left by or any grading that's required by the bank building. And if not, we would then be looking at a change order on the City Center Commons project to pay for back filling because we feel that LS Black can do that more efficiently than Veit Companies. Todd Hoffman: ~t Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions? Councilman Ayotte: Just a real quick. Environnm~tally we're sound, right? Todd Hoffman: Environmentally we have a hazardous material report that is completed. There's five items there. They're real minor and Veit Companies will be required to bring in a company to do that and provide a written mplat based on documenting their removal. Councilman Ayotte: You could have just said yes. Todd Hoffman: Yes. We're covereck Councilman Ayotte: Alright. Todd G~rhardt: Todd, and that cost is included in the, in Veit's bid? Todd Hoffman: Yes it is. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions? Councilman Ayotte: No sir. Mayor Furlong: Seeing none, is there a motion? Councilman Peterson: So moved. 10 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Mayor Furlong: Per staff's reco~rlstion. Is there a second? Councilman Ayotte: Second. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the motion? Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman A yotte seconded to approve Veit Companies as the contractor for the "old bank" demolition project, less back filling in the amount of $23~49. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. RECONS~mERATION OF A VARIANCE TO ALLOW A SECOND DRIVEWAY, 9450 FOXFORD ROAD~ RQN SAATZER. Mayor Furlong: This is an item that was considered earlier. Was voted for a reconsideration at our last meeting and unless there's any objection from council I think we'll just start fresh with the staff report. Go into discussion. I see the applicant's here this evening which is great, and we'll just go through the process. So staff report please. Matt Saarm Thank you Mayor Furlong, council me~. As you said, this item was before you at the last council meeting I believe. The applicant Mr. Saatzer, residing at 9450. I have a survey on the monitor for you. This is the existing house and the existing driveway. The variance is for a second driveway, which was constructed in the fall of 2002. To allow for tim second driveway. The house and original driveway were built in '89. As I said, the second driveway was constructed last fall. The applicant's reasoning for the second driveway, as stated in his letter, is that the existing driveway is long and difficult to back out of at night. Staff did review. There is one street light at that corner out them. I think that was a question last time so just to clarify that. In staff's opinion there are other options for this variance. I'll touch on those now. One of the options is to construct a loop driveway which would utilize the existing driveway and that access out onto Foxford Road. Second option would be to pave a larger turnaround area or utilize some of the second driveway that was constructed so that one could back out and then drive out the existing driveway. In a similar fashion to what's done now with this second driveway. You have to back out and turn out that way so you're really not losing anything by paving a larger turnaround. Another option would be to illuminate or light the side of the driveway here. To better illuminate it so when you back out it's easier to see. Staff feels that the applicant does have reasonable use of the ~. We don't see a hantsh~. As such we're reconunending denial of the variance based on the findings in the staff report. Be happy to take any questions. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any quesfi~ for stuff? I guess the question I have, there's an ordinance right now, if I'm not mistaken that limits driveway access to city streets to one per property, is that the issue that we're dealing with? Mayor Furlong: And when was that put in place7 That ordinance adopted, approximately. Matt Saam: Fall of 2001. Mayor Furlong: Okay. And what was the reasoning or the purpose behind establishing that ordinance, to your best recollection? 11 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Matt Saam.' Sure. Really two fold. One from planning's point of view. They were seeing, Fll call it a proliferation of out buildings being used as a business or o~ use, so to try to e 'hminate that they, we went with the one driveway access. Obviously if you only have one driveway then you wouldn't want to run a business out of your own personal driveway. From an en~neering standpoint our feeling was really safety. It's good en~neering thumb nde to limit your number of accesses to public streets. You limit your possibilities of accidents that way, so those were the two ITmjor reasons. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Todd Gerhardt: This was the item mayor. Mayor Furlong: Oh! Mr. Gerhardt. Would you like us to read back your previous comments7 Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, could you. Sergeant Olson, our chief law enforcement officer did go out at this site. He had some minor concerns regarding the traffic volume. This is on a large lot cul- de-sac. He did recommend if they could do a fight-in into the driveway only off of, I think it's Eastwood Court, would be his only recomnzmdation from a safety concerto Councilman Lundquistz I didn't under, can you, a right-in? ~t Olson's cone. gm is? Todd Gerhardt: That he not come out of the driveway. That be access coming right on Eastwood and not use that as an exit. So you wouldn't come in to oncoming traffic as a car was coming onto Eastwood. Councilman Lundquist: So you would, Serge~mt Olson is reco~ pulling out onto Foxford versus the cul-de-sac on Eastwood? Todd Gerhardt: Yes. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Teresa Burgess: If I could clarify that for you. The reason is because of the angle of the driveway. The newly con~ driveway is at a sharp angle and comes angled back into traffic. You are facing when you stand on that driveway or when you come out of that driveway, you're facing into on coming traffic. Not coming out in a typical 90 degree angle like you would in most driveways. Mayor Furlong: So would his concern be alleviated if it was a 90 degree access point? Do we know? Teresa Burgess: It would certainly be alleviated if you were to make it a 90 degree access point. However to do that would cause you to eliminate more trees to move it. And again looking at it, Matt and I did visit the site on Friday. The visibility on the site is very good from the existing driveway, if you were m be pulling out forward, I understand the applicant's concern backing out, but if you were to require them to realign that driveway, I would question the cost effectiveness of having them realign the driveway versus telling them no, you can't have the driveway. Construct a turnaround and use the existing driveway. To reconstxuct it you're going to remove the existing asphalt and re-pave that arem Remove additional trees and vegetation. 12 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Mayor Furlong: So the issue of concern again, just for my clarification, is bec~n~ that driveway, and I think that was on the picUa'e there, actually curves. Teresa Burgess: Because it curves towards oncoming traffic. Mayor Furlong: Okay. On the Eastwood down here. Teresa Burgess: And to clarify en~neering's concern is that we do not see a hardship jusfif3ring the variance. We always like to see driveways limited whenever possible. In fact we have encouraged people to share driveways in the past because the number of access points always increases the potential points of conflict. In this case we do not see a hardship that justifies the additional driveway. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff at this time, or any other comments? Okay. Thank you. I see the applicant is here. Would you like to address the council at this time? Ron Saatzer: Sure. Good evening Mayor and council members. Mayor Furlong: Good evening. Ron Saatzer: You guys are getting fired of hearing about this driveway I'm sure but. I did talk to the Sergeant and I' m sure he was out there and I guess I'm a little confused of what he's talking about on the backing or coming out on East Court. Or ~ood Court. Maybe somebody can shed some light on that of what he, what his suggestion was on that circumstance. I do want to back up to the fact that, and let evexybody know that when we went ahead and built this there was confusion on my behalf and somebody from, somebody in the en~neering depaxtment telling me that I could go ahead and build thi.~ driveway. I asked if you could have two entrances onto our lot and somebody said we could. My wife was witness of it and that's why we kind of went ahead and did what we did. So I want to apologize for that. The other thing that I wanted to a_d_d~ was that this driveway is adding value to this propea~. We've, and to the neighborhood itseff. We've cleaned it up. We've put some boulder walls in there. It's increased the value and it's, the City would want to hear that and know that. The other thing that I'd like to add too was, we do have four liltle girls and when I'm hearing about backing out or coming iR, if we pull in off of Fox:ford Road, that's one. I mean we're coming in. We're going out the other side so it doesn't matter if we're, if we took that thing out we would still be going in and out the .same number of times so it really doesn't matter. So we're not doing a complete loop so that doesn't make sense to me so I just wanted to add that but in regards to it coming out at a sharp angle, there's snow there so that has no indication of what it's. Denise Saatzen This drawing right here isn't really to scale. Ronnie, they asked Ronnie to draw this. Ron Saatzer: Sketch something in there. Denise Saatzer: And if you were to go look at it right now, engineering, it would look like it probably faces one way. This is a cul-de-sac back here so the~'s only I think 3 residences so there's not like there's a lot of traffic coming through here. More of the traffic is corning along this way and this is a bend fight here. So this is where probably the only bend in the neighborhood that we're going to have problems with traffic because everybody else can clearly see coming and going and that was one of the main re, as~. They also said that we had, we could do a little turnaround right here. Well there's a big clurr~, of mature trees and pine trees right 13 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 here that we didn't want to get fid of and flaem was just brush and kind of stuff right here and it just made sense to clear away and clean up the whole area and aesthetically and to make it a little safer for backing out. We could put fights in. This one fight that he spoke of is not enough fight to help us to get out of our driveway. Again, it's just, there's three houses here. We haven't had any neighbors say anything agsin.~t what we did. In fact they probably will be very, I'm sure they're very happy and they have said that they're very happy on how we've made tho house loolc I don't remember what else. Ron Saatzer. Well I also wanted to s_dd in regards to pulling out onto Eastwood Court that when we pull out we're just coming out to a stop sign so it's giving us the oppommity to stop, take a look and go out. When you're backing out, I don't think it's, when you're backing out on, backing out of our driveway here. This is a sharp kind of turn here that comes down the hill here so in the wintertime, you know if we're backing out and somebody comes down that hill there, we've got some kids in here that are, that drive really fast and I've actually had to make a few phone calls to try to slow that down so you know, I'm just, it's a concern of our's and it's a lot easier for us to kind of pull out and it's safer so, I don't think I have any more to add. Any questions? Mayor Furlong: Any questions? Councilman Peterson: If you needed to, go back to that drawing Nann if you could. CoUld you make that less of an angle? Ron Saatzer: Yeah, that's not a problem- Councilman Peterson: Make it straight on or closer to being straight on versus the angle that the Sergeant is speaking of. Denise Saatzer: And I think actually if, I don't know if the engineers acumlly have gone out ~ before the snow. Teresa Burgess: Yes we have. We have visited this site. Denise Saatzer: It's, I don't know engineer wise I don't, it doesn't curve like it shows hem. It probably curves a little teeny bit but yes, it could be straighten out if that was an issue. Them is no big brush fight next to it to get in the way of vision either and that was something that we thought about with the children as well. Councilman Peterson: Second question. I'm assuming your intent is to pave it or concrete it at some point in time? Ron Saatzer: No. I know it's a concern for the engineering depaxtment to probably do a cut back and asphalt it at the road itself. That's not a problem- It's something I think we were aesthetically trying to make it more natural with a kind of a crashed Class V asphalt. So that's what we're kind of leaving it right now. I mean there's some aesthetic things that we want to do but we're going to wait to see what happem here and I do have pictures here and it kind of is pretty straight forward that it could be brought out almost at a 90 degree angle. It's not really an issue. Denise Saatzer....it's not the real orange stand out rock. It blends with dirt and you might not even really notice it's there. 14 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Teresa Burgess: Council, just to remind you. That would require a variance for them to leave it not hard surfaced. To leave it with the rock instead. That would require a separate variance from the second driveway variance. Councilman Lundquist: The entire thing or just the 10 foot? Teresa Burgess: Just in the right-of-way. But it would require the public hearing for a variance. That was not discussed in the original public hearing. Councilman Lundquist: Right. Councilman Peterson: That doesn't prevent us fxom putting a condition on there to require it. Councilman Lundquist: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Okay, are there any other questions? Councilman Lundquist: Mr. and Mrs. Saatzer. You guys, you've been doing a lot of remodeling to your house, is that right? Ron Saatzer: That's correct. Councilman Lundquist: And so during the course of all this remode~ that's when the driveway in question was put in, right? Ron Saatzer: Correct. Councilman Lundquist: And I know there's a question about whether, you know who you talkexl to at the city or did you talk to anybody at the city or what went on, but was there any question in your mind at all that you were doing anything that wasn't on the up and up? I mean you didn't just try to slam this driveway in as something. Ron Saatzer: No. Well Matt brought up a good point that I guess before the year 2001, I mean I've got a list of almost a dozen driveways that have two accex, ses, so moving in the neighborhood of course I'm kind of a handy guy and I like to fix things and if I had my choice I'd love to put a big pole barn back there but that's not going to happen so, but people do have sheds and they have barns and they have whatever so I didn't see any reason of doing a little circular driveway. I'm not trying to access behind my property and what have you so that was why I did what I did and when I did make the phone call, you know whoever said whatever they said and kind of made a sense that well everybody else seems to have a couple ~ onto their driveways so, or their property so I didn't really see a problem- Not everybody. Denise Saatzer: Not everyone but you know quite a few people do and maybe they...and they're not supposed to and we don't really know. Councilman Ayotte: We want their names. Ron Saatzer. We don't want to get anybody in trouble so, anyway. No, them was no delibemm intent to not do it the you know i .mproper way. It was basically. 15 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Lundquist: In fact it was probably one of our building inspeetom that came out to do an inspection on your remodel that probably saw the. Ron Saatzer. Well it didn't hurt that our old mayor lives across the street from us so that could have something to do with it. I don't know but anyway. Teresa Burgess: Actually to clarify just so there's no hard feelings in the neighborhood. It was discovered by a city staff person inspecting a violation on an alternate property, not thi.~ property. And when they drove by they noted the driveway and knew that there was not a right-of-way permit for the driveway. Came back and verified that and then contacted the Saatzer's. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Are there any other questions or connnents? Or questions I guess at this time for the applicant. Councilman Lundquist: The other thing, just one more, sorry. Matt, when we talked about this previously you had suggested if council were to approve this variance, that one of the conditions we put on would be a survey for drainage concerns because that would, you know whether or not we need a culvert there or whatever, because the land slopes down towards the cul-de-sac on Eastwood Court and any of that stuff. Would it still be your request that that be included as a condition of a variance approval? Matt Saam: Yes. Yes. Maybe wait til a_~er the snow melts you know, in the spring. He can get it surveyed and have the topography on the plan he has so. Councilman Lundquistz Okay. Mayor Furlong: Okay? Teresa Burgess: Mr. Mayor if I could add, given Sergeant Olson's concerns as well, I would recommend that we add a condition, if you are pmIx~_ing to approve the variance, that the property owners be required to reimburse the City the cost of putting up s~d~itional signage to warn of this driveway, and we would work with the ~ owners. Those signs, we would ask that they pay for the initial installation and after that we would maintain and repair and ~place as appropriate. And I do not have that cost estimate thig evening, but I would be happy to supply it for them Mayor Furlong: What sort of signs are required for a driveway? Teresa Burgess: We would put up a driveway ahead sign, just to warn oncoming traffic that it is them. Denise Saatzer: This street's a cul-de-sac so I think everybody knows. Teresa Burgess: I'm aware of that. I'm aware that it's a cul-de-sac but you do have visitors coming into the neighborhood. Somebody having an activity at their home has people corning in. A new owner moving into the neighborhood. Delivery trucks. Those would be more of a concern than the prope~ owners adjacent to the property. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay, any other questions for the applicants at this time? Of staff. If not, thank you. I'll bring it back to council for discussion. Is ttmm any discussion on thi~ matter? Again. 16 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Peterson: You know I guess I'm reluctantly comfortable moving ahead with it. I would be motivated to put a condition on to pave it. I think it's appropriate for the neighborhood to pave the whole area, not just the 10 feet. I think it would look even more strange. You know I would also say that we require that it be straighten out mitigating the Sergeant Olson's concern about the fight-in only. I think that's, I don't like putting conditions on there that we really can't enforce. I mean I think it's kind of ridiculous and I don't, and plus I think once we straighten out the road, the need for signage I think is mitigated also so I don't think we need to put a sign up personally. I think the other driveway's more dangerous than this one and then do the survey issue so those three things would be my thoughts and concerns and co~ts. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilman Ayotte. Councilman Ayotte: Mr. Sa&, how do you say your name7 Ron Saatzer: Saatzer. Councilman Ayotte: Saatzer. He's correct, I don't want to see him back here again with this road so I want to go ahead and I think we ought to do it, one. Two, I think it will help mitigate the collective concern that this council has addressed with respect to e 'hminating the term Chanhassle. We've heard that before and we're working towards that situation so every time we have a resident come up, when it's a reasonable request, I think we ought to work towards allowing it to occur as long as it' s not stepping over the line. I don't think it is because of the, because of this particular situation of where it's located. If it was located someplace else it would not be as receptive to saying yes. I think as usual Craig's bring some very sound recommendations, and I think we should consider those. I'm not as interested in making the condition of paving all the way down. If there's one on this council that does not have aesthetic taste it's me so I couldn't really comment one way or the other from that standpoint so I'm not as rigid on that particular point. Survey, absolutely. But I say let's get on with it. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Lundquist: I'm inclined to suptxax the variance. SmWs...driveway, that's never going to accept an out building, and the safety concern is I believe the exact reason that the second driveway was added. I've seen the site as well and I would, I can sympathize with them wanting to put that second access into a cul-de-sac where there's only 3 or 4 houses on it to significantly reduce that traffic that they're pulling out into. The paving is, I guess I would be with the site with the mature trees and other things that are there, I could go either way. I think we should require a, at the minimum, the paving in the right-of-way but as for paving the entire thing, it's not a hold up for me either way. I could go either way. But definitely include the survey for necessary drainage or other addressing that. Mayor Furlong: My comments are similar. I think one of the things that I've wanted to do here since this is a asking for forgiveness rather than asking for permission type of a variance is to try to look at it as to how we would look at it if we were seeing it before. While the~ are some other alternatives, I think this, from a safety stan~ I've seen longer driveways, though I know it's difficult to back out, especially with children, young children and with their toys and most of all you don't want to hit the children. Second of all I think from a public safety standpoint I'm glad that we took the time here to hear Sergeant, was it Olson that went out to review that? Because I think this driveway, especially when it's changed to a 90 degree access to the street will probably be ~ away from the intersection than the existing driveway is. So from a safety and car standpoint, while that isn't a major thoroughfare coming around that corner and over the hill 17 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 down, it's going to be easier to access Foxford Road coming off the second onto there. But I think it's impormm to have that 90 degree acmes point so that we don't run into the problems from public safety standpoint. I think from a condition standpoint I'd like to see all of it paved as Councilman Peterson said. It's not that much longer. In fact I think the run is actually shormr than the existing driveway which is all paved, and certainly the survey, make sum the drainage is okay with the fight-of-way. And I guess I'd like to see, there was a June 30 timeframe included in the original proposal and I guess I'd like to see a similar timeframe put in platm, and if June 30 will work, which it looks like it might, to get this all squared away, I think I'd be inclined to go forward. I agree with Councilman Ayotte's commenm that in anothex location or another property I might not be so inclined to approve it. I think safety is an issue. From a public safety standpoint multiple accesses can be a problem but I think in this particular lot and I can be more comfortable with moving forward. So those are my comments, and with that I will ask if them are other comments or if there's a motion. Councilman Ayotte: I wanted to see who's going to volunteer to make a motion for this sucker. Councilman Lundqulst: I would move that we approve the vatian~ for the second driveway, but that it comply with the current city code hard surface requirement, and that a revised as-built survey submitted showing accurate elevation data and the survey would be reviewed by staff to determine the need for a storm culvert or other drainage measures. And that the driveway be changed to meet. Mayor Furlong: Aligned. Councilman Lundquist: Aligned to meet Eastwood Court at a 90 degree angle. Teresa Burgess: Mr. Mayor, could I make a comment on the motion please. Mayor Furlong: Let me see if I get a second. Teresa Burgess: Yes sir. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? Councilman Ayotte: Second. Mayor Furlong: There's a second. Discussion on the motion. Yes. Teresa Burgess: Mr. Mayor, the request for an as-built survey was as~ the council would approve the existing alignment. When you request that they malign the driveway, then we would ask for a design survey instead of an as-built survey so that we can look at it and work with them to make sure the drainage is addressed at the time they put it in, rather then come back and tell them after they've paved it they have to put in a culvert. Mayor Furlong: So it's a clarification, okay. Councilman Lundquist: Clarification to design survey mt. her than as-built survey? Teresa Burgess: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Because of the requirement to realign the existing. 18 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Teresa Burgess: Yes sir. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Is there other discussion'/ Councilman Peterson: A friendly amen~nt. My only point would be, my position still stands, I would prefer to see it paved. I think all the other driveways in Eastwood are paved. It just seems more appropriate that that be paved no matter, I mean I've driven by too. I looked at it and went, it just doesn't look right to the rest of the neighbors is what I'm speaking, not necessarily for them. Mayor Furlong: So you're making a motion to amend for paving all of it? Okay. Is that okay Councilman Lundquist? Councilman Lundquist: Absolutely. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Teresa Burgess: Mr. Mayor, did you also want to include the condition of time~? That it be done by a certain date. Councilman Lundquist: Friendly amen~t as that. Mayor Furlong: June 30~ Councilman Lundquist: June 3ffh deadline. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Ron Saatzer: Well it's Minnesota, you never know. Mayor Furlong: We'll take our chances. Ron Saatzer: We've got to get the frost line down and so it's not a problem. Mayor Furlong: We'll take our chances by the 4~h of July, okay. Everybody clear with the motion then? So we need any findings of fact different than what has been stated in our comments already? Tom Scott: We would prepare a findings memorializing this. Mayor Furlong: Okay, very good. With that being said, we have a motion and to summarize, approving the variance request Realigning for a 90 degree with a design survey, is that correct language? And paving the entire way. Is that a fair summary? Councilman Lundquist: By June 30~. Mayor Furlong: By June 30~. Is there any other discussion? Councilman Lundqui~t moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to ~pprove Varlan~ g2003-1 to allow a second driveway on property loemted at 94~ F~ford Road~ with the conditions: 19 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 . A design survey be provided showing the driveway maligned with the access onto Eastwood Court at a 90 degree angle. 2. The driveway shall be paved with construction completed by June 30, 2003. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. APPEAL DECISION OF ~ PLANNING COMMW~ION; DENIAL OF REQUEST FOR FRONT, LOT ARF~ AND HARD SURFACE COVERAGE VARIANCK~ FOR ~ CONSTRUCTION OF A SINGLE FAMILY HOME; 767 CARVER BEACH ROAD~ JEFFREY KING. Sharmeen AI-Jaff: Mayor Furlong, me~ of the City Council. The subject site is located in the Carver Beach neighborhood. It's a subdivision that was created in 1927. The majority of the homes within that area, as well as the lots don't meet today's standards as far as lot area of 15,000 square feet, hard surface coverage 25 percent, front yard setbacks of 30 feet and then the side yard setback, 10 feet. With that said, the subject site has an area of 8,562 square feet. Approximately half of what today's ordinances require. Them is an existing single family home on the site. It covers approximately 29 ½ percent of the site. It encroaches into the required side yard setbacks. The applicant is tn'oposing to demolish the existing single family home and is proposing to build a single family home that meets today's standard as far as the size of the home. It has a 2 car garage. However, some of the variances that the applicant is requesting include a 20 foot front yard setback. The hard surface c. overage is 33 percent, and again these standards exceed the ordinance. Staff agrees that the applicant needs a variance to build on this site. However one of the things that we try to look at was how can we meet the applicant's needs yet try to minimize the affect of these variances. One of the suggestions that we made to the applicant was potentially flipping the house if you will, and I'm going to try to put these two surveys side by side. Lotus Lake is located in this area. One of the applicant's concerns, which is a valid concern of course, was the fact that if the lake is in this area, why are we locating the garage facing the lake. Why not actually have people looking at the lake rather than cars. Our only concern with the applicant's proposal is the fact that this is a corner lot. If we look at homes within Carver Beach you will notice that quite a few of them encroach into required setbacks. There are cases where the homes actually are built over property lines so it's not the fact that we don't support a variance. In fact we do agree that a variance is required on this lot. It's how far do we want to encroach into the front yard setback. Being that this site is a comer lot we need to maintain an open site distance and Matt will be addressing this issue ~ as we move along. We met with the applicant at length and we, we're trying to acc. omm~ his request. We're trying to come up with alternative designs. One of the options that we came up with was, what happens if you maintain the livable area facing the lake but maybe push the garage closer to the road. When you do this you have maintained open sight distances. You do have a two car garage. The green space has increased on the site, and it seems like a solution that would meet the applicant's intent and at the same time safety of drivers would also be taken care of. And before Matt takes the podium I just wanted to say that this is the subject site. What I have colored in pink are sites that are within 500 feet and they do have front yard setbacks that are substantially less than what the applicant is requesting as far as encroachment. So when you think of is there a standard for reduced setbacks within this neighborhood, the answer is yes there is. Councilman Lundquist: When you say substantially less, you're saying substantially closer than, less than 20 feet. City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Sharmeen Al-Safe. Correct Well we've got a site here that is 3 feet over the property line. This is 6 feet, 15 feet. So there is a mix and there is an estab~ standard for reduced setbac~ within this neighborhood. Another thing I did was to show yon a range of lot areas. Again the ordinance requires 15,000 square feet and what you see on the survey in green are 15,000 or more. The applicant's lot area is 8,562 square feec What you see in yellow are reduced or lot areas that are less than 9,000 square feet. We prepared two recommendations for you. The first one, which is what went before the Planning Commission and it basically required the applicant to flip the home, maintain a 26 front yard setback, hard surface coverage of 29.5 percent, and again the main reason for it was sight triangles. Or sight distances. The applicant wanted the views of the lake. We want to work with the applicant. We want to ac.c. ommodate his requegL We prepared an alternative recommendation for you. It is on page 8 of your staff report and it basically removes condition 5 which requires the applicant to flip the home. I would like to turn it over to Matt at this point to explain the sight distances. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Matt Saam: Thank you Mayor Furlong, council members. This is a survey of the site. As Sharmeen mentioned, our concern, engineering's major concern on this from a safety sampling was sight distance. We have a somewhat narrow street on a curve with the house and the comer of the house is proposed to project out into the setback, essentially into the line of sight. Sight distance defined as distance for a motorist to see and be able to stop around an obstruction or when something is obstructing their site. In this instance it's the corner of the proposed house. The American Association of State I~ghway and Transportation orris, ASHTO recommends that the minimum sight distance for a 30 mile per hour street be 188 feet. So putting en~neering to use I checked what the sight distance would be for the applicant's proposal. What we did is, as I said, the corner of the house is the obstruction so we just simply drew a line from the edge of the street at the point of the obstruction, signifying this is the first point that a motorist could see around the house. And then we measure the distance on a traveled roadway for those two points on the street. We got approximately 185 feet. 3 feet less than the minimum required. We also looked at staff's proposal of a 26 foot setback house. That's the line in red here. Did the same thing. Measured the distance on the street That one's approximately 200 feet so more within what is recommended as a minimum for sight distance on a 30 mile per hour street. Sharmeen, that's it unless you have any questions. Sharmeen A1-Jaff: Planning Commission recommended approval of this application again and staff is recommending approval. We gave you two options. Mayor Furlong: And just for my clarification. That's approval with the 26 foot setback, not the requested 20 foot. Sharmeen AI-Jaff: That's Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Lundquist: Planning Commission's recomrrumdafion is with the flipped, with the garage blocking the view of the lake and alternate one on page 8 is the. Sharmeen AI-Jaff: Keeping the house as is. Councilman Lundquist: As is with the 26 foot. 21 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Shanneen Al4aff: Front yard setback- Councilman Lundquist: Setback, and does that 26 foot encroach into any of the side lot variances? Sharmeen Al4aff: No it doesn't It maintains a 10 foot side yard setback. When the applicant originally applied for this variance it was a request for front yard setback variance, hard surface coverage as well as lot area. And we discussed this issue with the city attorney. Can we discuss or reconunend a side yard variance at this time? It was never published so we would need to go through the process again. The neighbors have not been nofifie~ Councilman Lundquist: Of the side yard? Sharmeen AlJaff: Of the side yard. Councilman Lundquist: But there aren't any side yard variances required? Sharmeen Al4aff: No. It was never requested. Councilman Lundquist: Never requested but are they required? Sharmeen A14aff: No they're not. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Sharmeen Al4aff: They're main~g a 10 foot side yard. Councilman Lundquist: And so what's the, I guess I'm confused with the applicant wants a 20 foot. Sharmeen Al4aff: Front yard. Councilman Lundquist: Front yard, and the 26 foot still maintains all of the side variances and the sight lines and the everything else. Then what's the, is there an issue with the 26 versus the 20 foot that the applicant's requesting? Sharmeen Al4aff: With the 20 foot is kr, ated within the sight triangle. If you flip the home, then you can maintain a 26 foot front yard setback. Staff, we try to avoid desiL:ming homes. Councilman Lundquist: Sure. That was going to be my next qtmstiom How much do you do that? Sharmeen Al4aff: We just wanted to demonstrate that there are other alternatives. Councilman Lundquist: Sure. Sharmeen Al-la_fi: What we did was, it's basically the same footprint that the applicant submitted and the only difference between this and that design is we brought this portion, the livable area of the house to the back and to the side. We pushed the garage closer to the road. That's really the only difference between this and that request. City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Peterson: And we don't know whether the applicant likes that yet. We'll find that out in a few minutes obviously. Sharmeen M-la_fi: The applicant prefers, based upon conversalions we've had with the applicant. Councilman Peterson: Obviously their preference would be the original request but we haven't gotten their strong feedback one way or the other on the, on our alternative from staff, fight? Sharmeen Al-Jaff: Well they do have a concern. The applicant does have a concern. This is the adjacent home. This is the location of the adjacent home and the applicant was concerned that the view of the garage might bother them. We're just looking at alternatives again and how can we minimize these variances. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions for stat~ Matt, if I understood ~y when you had your ruler up there, is the, does the requested setback of 20 feet, does that provide essentially the guidance for clear. Matt Saam: Well essentially, it doesn't meet the minimum requirement, no. It's 3 feet short. Mayor Furlong: It's 3 feet short of the imu requirement. So it's 185 versus 1887 Mayor Furlong: Okay. And that's for a 30 mile an hour curve. Matt Saam: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Is the applicant here this evening? Mr. King. Good evening. Jeffrey King: Good evening Mayor and council people. What I am, what I'd like to state is that I would like to keep the house as much off the road as I can. You know we keep talking about square footage but I don't undemtand square footage. What it comes down to is my lot is less than .2 acres. The minimum requirement is 15,000 square feet. That's just over .34 acres, so we're talking about an extremely small lot. And the 25 percent hard surface is based on 15,000 square feel I've got 8,562 so you keep breaking statistics down, and then on top of that you give me a lot that's kind of a pie shape. You know if the lot was square, it's easier to keep setbacks, but my front setback is also my side setback. So that's where I keep running into problems bec__ause when you have a garage, a double garage, and a house, you keep bumping into the comer. My goal, I didn't know anything about this side, I thought I would work with just the front setback but if I can work at all with the side yard setbacks, I'd like to but I found out since I applied the way I did I' m not eligible. So what I'd like to, so what I would like to do is somehow work and get the house back so you have the sight lines for visibility, and be able to keep the house the way I want to keep it. I have brought some neighbors have showed up. Are they able to testify tonight or is that not possible because it's. Mayor Furlong: Well there was a, I mean them was a public hearing, is that correct at the Planning Commission meeting so I guess it would be up to the council if they would want to entertain or not. Maybe we can start with some questions fitsc City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Jeffrey King: Well I guess what I'm asking for is, I'm willing to give on the 20 feet on the front, but I would like to say that right now my current house is a 1 car garage, 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom hon~ and right now I'm at 29.5, so I've got a substandard house and I'm at 29.5 percent hard surface and I'm to build a home with a double garage, to stay at modern standard, and to keep at the same hard coverage surface. I find that to be a hardship. I would like to have the driveway more like I showed it over here because you know ff I just have my 2 sisters and my parents over I have 3 cars. Well if I have a driveway that I can only put 2 ears in, you have to park on Carver Beach Road which is less than 24 feet wide. It's not exactly a safe road to park on. You know I realize it all comes down to the statistics of a small lot, small working area and just trying to put a house on there. It doesn't necessarily have to be this house but I think no matter what I do I'm going to have to have more than 29.5 txar. ent hard cover surface area. So I guess I'm asking for, I think I can negotiate with Sharmeen, or whoever the city is on the sight lines for safety but I think no matter what I need more hard surface area. Is there any questions that you have? Councilman Lundquist: Mr. King your, Nann can you put the drawings back up again please. The one there that, well that isn't the 20 foot one on it but that particular, that one right them, yep. That's the layout that you prefer with the house having the sight line of the lake and all of that. Now, you are amenable to taking that layout and moving it to a 26 foot setback? Jeffrey King: I've done a couple of them and I've, you know you can play with it all you want but then sometimes I go into the side yard just a little bit This one you know you break two planes. This one here I can get back 26 feet but I break in, you know 5 feet into the one side yard. Councilman Lundquist: Well I thought that's what I asked before was that. Jeffrey King: I'm not eligible because when I initially applied I couldn't get a side yard variance because I didn't ask for it in my initial proposal or application I guess tithe proper word. Councilman Peterson: That doesn't preclude it from coming back in the next, at another meeting. Councilman Lundquist: Right, but I guess I'm confused before I thought, I must have misunderstood Sharmeen. If we had the layout that Mr. King submitted with the 20 foot setback, if that was at a 26 foot setback in the front, does that encroach into the 10 foot side setback? Sharmeen Al-laff: Not the way staff laid out the design. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. But Mr. King's preferred layout that he has with the 20 foot setback. Take that same exact, the one picture that was up there before. The other one. Councilman Ayotte: We ought to A, B, C ~ things. Councilman Lundquist: No, not either one of those. There you go, that one. If you take that layout and move it so that the house is 26 feet back, does that then encroach upon the 10 foot side? Jeffrey King: Correct. Councilman Lundquist:. It does7 Sharmeen A1-Jaff: Yes it will. City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Lundquist: That's the part I didn't understand. Alright. Sharm~n AI-Jaff: I apologize. Jeffrey King: Another thing with the layout they have right here is the neighbors next to me, there is approximately 9 oak trees that are right here. If I put a driveway in, I can't imagine being able to save that 20, right in that corner is a 24 inch maple. I can't imagine paving around a third of it and then paving down the neighbors oak trees. I can't imagine. I'm not a tree expert but I can't imagine those trees being alive in 3 years. That's part of the reason I'd like to have the driveway come off that end, where it currently is out at that end. I was hoping to restorate my existing driveway and save cost that way. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for the applicant? Okay. Thank you. Is there any discussion or would the council like to hear from some of the other neighbors? Councilman Peterson: My perspective is I don't think we need to hear from the neighbors quite frankly. I think that the issue is sight line and safety which you know I think we can address as a council versus the neighbors so I don't think there's, I don't think the sethagks, as they ~ today are neighborhood issues. So I don't think we need to say that, and we gall gO to co~ts from my perspective. Mayor Furlong: Is that agreed? Councilman Lundquist: Agreed. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Ayotte? Councilman Ayotte: Yeah, that's fine. I do have a question for point of clarification. Mayor Furlong: Certainly. Councilman Ayotte: Now? Mayor Furlong: Sum. Councilman Ayotte: Okay. With the fact that if he would re-apply, it ~ens up a variety of additional options that should and could be worked to get even a better solution. I'm wondering why that wouldn't be a consideration at this point. Councilman Lundquist: That's part of the public record. He has to gO through a heating and everything else if he encroaches on that 10 foot Councilman Ayotte: But I mean if the applicant is willing in order to widen the options. Councilman Peterson: It doesn't mean that we can't give him another option hem tonight. So he can take what we decide here tonight and. Councilman Ayotte: And gO ba~k and... Councilman Peterson: Exactly, make a decision. City Council Meeting - Mamh 10, 2003 Councilman Ayotte: Make a decision and maybe come back and do it again. Got it. Mayor Furlong: Yep. Other comments? Questions? From my standpoint I was reading most of this as the issue of a setback, and now what Fm hearing too is the hard cover area. The applicant indicating that the Planoing Commission's recommendation 29.5 percent wasn't enough. So I guess I mention that. I guess from that standpoint what I'm hearing though might be a good solution is to go ahead and provide him with something tonight even if it's not ideal, and then allow him to again work with staff to find some way to work within those parameters and then if he wants to come back, you know because of some side setback issues or s~ing like that, we can always revisit it and try to help him that way. But clearly given the size of the lot, there's hardship there. I certainly agree with staff on that issue. Safety is an issue around the curve. Those are narrow roads. Not quite sure if anybody could go 30 around those curves but if they do they'd have to be right on top of that and make sure nobody's coming the other way but safety is an issue because of the curve and the unfortunate nature and the fact that this lot is on the inside of that curve versus the outside of that curve. It would certainly provide greater oppommities but I'm inclined to support the second proposed resolution which excludes the req~t to flip the house per staff's layout and simply provide the allowance for a 29 ½ hard surface and also the 26 foot front yard setback. To provide some flexibility there I hope...enough but. Councilman Peterson: Would you need to go all the way to 26? He's already offered that he's potentially amenable to something less than 26. I'd like to be able to hit the standard, MnDot standard. So whether it's between 20 and 26 is I guess the question. Councilman Lundquist: How far can we go before we approach, before we violate that 10 foot side setback? Whatever you call it. Sharmeen AIJaff: It depends on where we are on the site. As you can see the setback in~. Councilman Lundquist: But the, it's going to be the side that's going to be the problem- If we push that 20 foot comer where the applicant is asking for 20 feet, if we push that 22 feet, does that violate that side setback? Matt Saam: Adjusting the site distance, if you want to meet the 188, I'm guessing that 25, for sure 24 foot setback would meet thaL Councilman Lundquist: Okay so if you do that then does that push you into the 10 foot? Sharmeen AIJaff: With the house design as is there are, if we go ~ the applicant to make any adjusunent to the house layout, then yeah. He will have to encroach. Councilman Lundquist: So it's 20 foot or he encroaches on the. Sharmeen Al4aff: Correct. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Matt Saam: You have to spin it somewhat I think is what she's saying. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. And the hard surface piece I .guess that's the original reque~ from Mr. King is for more than 29 ½7 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Sharmeen A1-Jaff: 33.45 percent. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. So your variance, both of the proposals that you've given us, that staff has given us would mean a smaller house. Or is the hard surface because of the driveway? Sharmeen Al-Jaff: It is because of the driveway. The applicalm has talked about sidewalks around the house. And staff's proposal does not include any sidewalks around the house. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Peterson, you were making some comment about the setback and the. Councilman Peterson: It was really moving away from the sight line setback of, moving it to 24 or 25 feet was really what I was trying to say. So it directly relates to the sight line setback. So that would be potentially 24 instead of 26. Councilman Lundquist: And that would require Mr. King to go get a variance for the, go through that process to get... Mayor Furlong: Or change the house. Councilman Lundquist: Or change the, fight. Okay. Mayor Furlong: Okay, is there other discussion? Or questions. If not I'll ask somebody for a motion. Got a couple fun ones here. Councilman Lundquist~ I had the last one. Councilman Ayotte: I'm not touching this. Councilman Peterson: I'll take a shot of this and go for friendly amendments from there. I'd say the City Council would recommend approval of Variance g2003-2 to allow 29.5 percent hard surface coverage and a variance to allow for a 24 foot front yard setback for the conslxucfion of a single family home on a non-conforming lot of record as shown on plans dated January 3, 2003, subject to conditions I through 47 Councilman Lundquist: And 2? Councilman Peterson: And 2. Let's do I through 5. Councilman Lundquist: And 5 then being a 24 foot? Councilman Peterson: That's fight. Again that'd be, as I'm talking here, the 24 1 guess, we're making that an estimate. I'd like to maybe be more ~c as to meeting the exact footage. If it meets 22, great. Let's find that out. But no more. Matt Saam: Minimum sight distance requirement of 188. Councilman Lundquist: To meet the 188 sight. Matt Saam: Whatever that setback is. City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Peterson: Yeah, and from a numbers standpoint I'm betting it's closer to 22 than it is 24. Matt Saam: Might be. Mayor Furlong: You only have 3 feet to pick up. Councilman Peterson: That's right. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Is there a second? Councilman Lundquist: Friendly amen~nt? Mayor Furlong: Yes, sure. Councilman Peterson: What is it? Councilman Lundquist: That we change the 29 ½ to 33 1/3 to allow Mr. King to put sidewalks and other pedestrian, that he has originally designed. Councilman Peterson: Accepted. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second now fox the motion? Councilman Ayotte: Second. Mayor Furlong: There's a second. IS there discussion on the motion7 Councilman Peterson moved, Coundlman Ayotte seconded that the City Council approves Variance ~.003-2 to allow a 33 1/3% hard surface coverage, a variance to allow 24 foot front yard setlmek to meet the minlmnm sight distance~ for the construction of a single family home on a non-conforming lot of record as shown on plans dated January 3, 2003, subject to the following conditions: 1. Show all of the existing utilities adjacent to the lot, i.e. sanitaxy sewer, storm sewer, and watermain. 2. Show all proposed and existing contour lines along with the proposed house. 3. Show the proposed house with elevations, driveway, sidewalk, etc. 4. The applicant will work with staff to maximize sight distances fox motorists on Carver Beach Road when siting the new house on the lot. 5. The home shall maintain a 24 foot front yard setback. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Justin Miller: Thank you Mayor, council, good evening. Before you tonight is an application for a private kennel permit at 6724 Lotus Trail. The applicant's name is Mr. ~ Veltkamp. In Chanhassen if you have more than 2 dogs or any combination of 4 dogs and cats you must have a private kennel permit from the City. On a recent call, animal control call to this ~ses, the Community Service Officer, left Meixner noticed that there were at least 3 dogs and 1 car on this premises and that there was not a private kennel license. At that time the CSO instmaed Mr. Veltkamp that he needed to obtain such a license. Such a permit. Mr. Veltkan~ came in. On his initial application he only put down that he had 1 dog. Approximately 3, thus he was saying that he did not need a private kennel permit. About 3 weeks later Mr. Veltkamp called back and added 3 dogs to this permit. Within that, what then has to happen is this is published in the paper for any public comment or review. In the 10 day required window we did not receive any complaints or any comments on this. However staff is continued to be concerned about the ability of Mr. Veltkamp to control dogs on this premise and as of last week, or last week ~ was a recent incident where 2 pit bull dogs that were recently brought onto the premise from a renter that lives in Mr. Veltkamp's house, atlacked a fellow renter and caused enough damage that here needed to be a trip to the emergency room. Those dogs have been quarantined as part of the city code. I think in the staff report I send along a copy of the sheriff log reports that have been to this premise. There have been numerous animal control calls to this location. It's staff's feeling that Mr. Veltkamp cannot c.x~trol these animals in a safe manner and for those reasons, as well as the biting incident that happened this past week, staff would reco~d that council de~y this private kennel permit. I'll be happy to take any questions? Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other questions for staff at this time? Any questions for staff? Councilman Ayotte: Yes. How many calls in the past year has been to this person's residence? And what type of calls have they been? Justin Miller. I believe I counted, I believe since August of 2001 there have been 43 total calls. Councilman Ayotte: Say again? Justin Miller: Since August of 2001 there have been 43 total calls. But of those, 5 have been animal control related. Councilman Ayotte: What have been the nature of the other calls? Justin Miller. They're everything from civil disputes to theft of a canoe to damage of pmpe~. They range pretty widely. Councilman Ayotte: And I understand this person also rents out. Justin Miller. He has several rooms, as I understand it, he rents out. Councilman Ayotte: Is our ordinance assodated with renters apply here? Justin Miller. It will as soon as we get that up and running, yes. Councilman Ayotte: Does this individual know about that ordinance? City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Justin Miller: I don't know about that. We'll be sending him a permitting, along with when we get that started, he'll be notified of that process. Councilman Ayotte: Now a pit bulls, and I forget the term but there are certain types of dogs that require a different sort of permitting and licensing than other dogs and regulations are more stringent. Can you talk towards that? Justin Miller: I don't have the actual code in front of me but I think it refers to dangerous dogs, not just pit bulls. And after there's a biting incident, as in this, the resident would like to keep the animal, there would be cemiin steps they would have to go through to be able to keep a quote dangerous animal. Councilman Ayotte: And what other types of dogs does this person have besides the pit bull? Justin Miller: According to his permit, which is dated January 27~ of this year he has a golden lab, a bulldog mix, a miniature achnauzer and another golden lab. It should be noted that none of the pit bulls that were in the biting situation this week were on this application. Councilman Ayotte: How bad was the renter, it was a renter that was bitten? Justin Miller. As I undemtand it, yes. Councilman Ayotte: Do we have any other follow-up information on the? Justin Miller. You know I just came across the police report today and Fm not sum. I think there was some sort of minor surgery involved but Mr. Veltkamp might be able to express tha~ I do know that at one point we called the hospital to try to figure out exactly if the victim could identify which dog and she was sedated. Now whether or not, I don't know. Councilman Ayotte: And what's Carver County Sheriff do~ about this, besides the fact that we sent out a CSO? Is there a deputy involved in this thing? Ha~ the~ been any. Justin Miller: There is a deputy involved. He's the one that acttuflly took the report. Our CSO was actually gone the day this happened so Sergeant Olson as well as Deputy Walgrave were the ones that took this report. Councilman Ayotte: And we don't know if the victim is going to go any ~ with this7 Justin Miller. I don't know. I haven't spoken to the victim. Councilman Ayotte: Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for stall'/ Okay. Is the applicant here this evening? Loren Veltkan~: Yes. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Veltkamp, would you like to address the council7 Loren Veltkamp: Oh yes. City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Mayor Furlong: Please come forward. If you could just state your nm-ne and 8cld_ress far the record, thank you. Loren Veltkamp: My name is Loren Veltkamp. Fm at 6724 Lotus Trail. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Loren Veltkamp: I've lived in this house for 12 years. I've been fixing it up and I didn't have enough money to live there so I took in some renters and the renters happen to have dogs so I took the dogs in with the renters. We live in a room mate si_msfion and I didn't know that there was a dog kennel license requirement to have 3 dogs. Everybody that I knew thought it was at 4. And we had 3 in the house, and then we found out that this was required so we made the application. I no longer have the cat. I got rid of my cat and them are 3 dogs in the house now. None of them belong to me. As a landlord I have no intention of bringing in any other dogs. And I certainly have no intention of bringing in any dangerous dogs. The dog, there was a dog that bit a tenant, and I have the tenant here, Jo Sanders. She was the one that was bit And this tenant has had some personal issues with her dog. She has 3 dogs and one of them came to live at this house and we take all dogs in on kind of a trial basis and this dog was growly and was kind of threatening and we were able to socialize it quite well I think and there's been no problem with that dog. She also wanted to bring in 2 other dogs, which I wasn't inclined to do but I said I'll take them on a trial basis for like the weekend. You know 2 days, and they were them I day when they bit this other tenant who came walldng in through the door. And this is totally unacceptable. I don't see, you know the tenant told me that she was never worried about these dogs. It was the first dog that I thought was socialized quite well that she had had problem with in the past. That dog actually bit somebody when that dog was a puppy, but it's like 6 years old now so it had 1 biting incident in another state. So you know that dog seemed to be pretty safe. I mean you can't always tell but at any rate, I'm certainly not going to have anythin~ to do with any dangerous dogs and I'm willing to go through any requirements to make sure that it never happens again. So I have a need to let personal pets on the ~ only with the tenants and the only reason I ask for that is because it's hard to rent out spaces. There's quite a vacancy right now in, on the south side. What I hear from renters is that there's about 300 ~ts that are empty now on the southeast side of the cities, and about 50 percent vacancy rate with just like established apartments. So it could be a big problem for me if I can't let a tenant in with a dog because then you know I would lose 10,000 a year on each tenant poss~ly, and that could be devastating for me. It might require the selling of the house you know is where that might lead. So I'm terribly sorry about this incident. Jo is hem to talk about it if you want to speak with her. The dog did bite her on the wrist and she did go to emergency so this is totally unacceptable. The dogs were there on a trial basis. You know the other dogs have been well behaved and I have every intention of keeping every city rule and I don't want dogs on the property at all. The only reason I would have a dog is if I needed it to you know lease out these apartm~ts which I surely need to lease. So I would ask for this and any conditions that you want to put on is fine with me. Like size of dog or anything else is fine. I have no objections to any of that and I do want to cooperate fully. Mayor Furlong: Great, thank you. Justin Miller: Mayor, it should be noted that even if Mr. Veltkamp doesn't receive this license tonight, he can still have 2 dogs without needing a kennel permit. Mayor Furlong: Under current city ordinance. 31 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Justin Miller. Under current city ordinance. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Loren Veltkamp: Right now I have 3 tenants and they all have a dog so I would have to evict somebody. And Fve been having calls for these apartments and one call I had just 2 days ago, the lady called up and said, you know can you take two pomerans, which are those little guys you know. And I said, I think I can you know, and that was all she wanted to know because she's calling around for her daughter. Fd also like to mention that the~ will be no, none of the things associated with a kennel, like breeding or training or selling or cages or any of that stuff. It's strictly house pets that are perfectly safe and all the people will be licensed you know according to city rules. And there should be no incidences. You know I'm going to make stn'e of it becsn~ I don't want any incidences or any trouble or any calls like that. It's just not good for business. So I have my word on that. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Are there any questions for the applicant while he's here? Okay. Thank you. Bring it to council for discussion. Councilman Lundquist: Question for Justin or Todd. The application has the 4 dogs on it, and how do we treat the application if these dogs that are listed on the application aren't the breed or number of dogs that are on the premises? Does thc breed or anything matter what's on the paper? Justin Miller: When we receive an application the CSO goes out and investigates the condition of the premise and if it's not as it's stated on these, I believe staff would reco~ denial. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. So if he doesn't have 2 golden labs, a schnauzer and a bulldog mix, then that' s, that is relevant to it versus just requesting 4 dogs? Todd Gerhardt: You'd have to come in for a modification to a kennel permit if the mix of dogs changes. Councilman Lundquist: Okay. Thank you. Todd Ger~t: It should also be noted Mayor, City Council me~, if you should grant thi~ kennel permit he would have to fence in the yard where the animals would roam outside, and that if there's any gates on those, they would have to be secured with some type of locking mechanism Councilman Ayotte: I don't know if I heard you correctly. With him making the application for permit, did you say that the CSO goes out and inspects that application? Justin Miller:. That is correct. Councilman Ayotte: And has inspection ocam'cd? Justin Miller: Yes. Councilman Ayotte: And what was the result of that impection? Can you give me a little more detail? I don't know if I caught it all. 32 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Justin Millet. The CSO felt that it wasn't an aflequam, that there weren't ~,qe~mte measures taken to control the dogs and that led to a lot of these dog at large issues. Councilman Peterson: Mr. Mayor, I'm comfortable taking staff's recommendation. I think the circumstances surrounding it certainly ally itself with supporting staff that by denying it and the applicants can still have 2 dogs, or a combination of the dogs and cats of 6 months in age. Mayor Furlong: Good. Is there any more? Councilman Ayotte: I'll make this as a matter of public record. I think the~'s a bigg~ issue than the dogs, and the fact that we've had at least 43 calls that you've referenced. We have the issues, a wide range of incidents at this home and I think our public safety department should look into it a little bit ~er with respect to what's going o~ Not this particular issue because we have to be concerned about the rest of the citizens so I'd lilm to quory the thought of looking at the situation a little bit further beyond simply the denial of the permit, which I favor. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Loren Veltkamp: Can I comment on the 43 calls? Mayor Furlong: No, it's alright. Not at this time. We're dealing with the issue of the kennel permit at this point and I think that's what council should be looking at. I guess from my standpoint I would be hesitant going forward with the permit at this time given the recent history on the dog incidences. Back in December and I'd like to, I'll be from Missouri on this one~ I want to see some success for a while prior to issuing the permit to expand the number of animals on the property, given that city ordinance allows some. It's not a complete restriction on that, I would concur with Councilman Peterson on this issue. Anyone comments or discussion? Councilman Lundquist: No, I would agree with the thoughts thus far and echo. I think the~'s enough things with the recent incident and the fact that the application in question has numbers and breeds of dogs that aren't accurate anyway so irmgardless of all the rest of the things going on, I would say just this application in particular you know with blinders on, that it's not accurate for what's actually occurring at the home fight now. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Fair enough. Is there a motion? Councilman Peterson: Motion to approve staff recordation. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? Councilman Lundqulst: Second. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the motion? Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded that the City Council deny the application for a private kennel permit. All voted in favor and the motion carried nnanimously with II vote of 4 to O. DISCUSSION OF LmRARY O NT G NcY FUNI~, BARRY PEITIT, MSGR. Mayor Furlong: Thank you for your patience this evening. 33 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Peterson: So Barry, do you have these kinds of ~g meetings in Wayzata too? Ban'y Pettit: It's a tough act to follow as they say. You know I'll tell you something that's really remarkable is, the process where you get up in the morning at 5:00 or 5:30 or 6:00 or whatever, and you work ail day and then you come to work at 5:00 or 6:00 or 7:00 at night to nm a billion dollar business and it really is the oddest way that you can ever imagine of running something like this. You know you guys do a great job, you really do and I'm, you do a great job. As you can tell I've mn out of patience. I can't do it anymore. I'm counting the days. Thanks for waiting around for me and it's aiways entertaining on a certain level to be sure. Here's the, the good news and bad news. Maybe not bad news. The good news is I would say, ff you've read through this, there's a lot of data on here and there's sort of some kind of theory that no matter who puts the spread sheet together, nobody else cam read it and so I apologize for thaC It just, it's the nature of, you put it together with your own mind set and the way you look at the world of numbers and nobody else gets it so I guess I figured that out. What we've done is, I should back up and say one of the more remarkable things about this project, and it's not even over. I mean here we are entering March and already there's claims this is the third coldest March in the history of weather record keeping. So almost every month we've gone into has had some new dynamic to it which breaks some kind of a record. And typically where we'd be looking at, got to be mid 30's now on average, you know we were 10 below last night. So all these things...more remarkable things I've never experienced, and this is credit to your staff, is we broke down these, in a series of columns. Again if you can make any heads or tails of this, and the various conditions on how we categorized dollar changes. Okay? And on number 8, under code issues, and this could be the first time not only for me but maybe in the history of the planet, that it's actually a minus number. In other words the staff, and I think prinlarily thanks to Steve Terrell, really looked at the plan at least in a way that we normally don't have engineers look at and made a lot of comments which I think would have passed by. And said you know this, I'm not sure you need this. You don't need so on and so forth and we did some studies and we saved some money so that was a neat deal and I really commend Steve and the rest of.the folks for doing that because it's made a difference. It really has. What happens with these things is you have, whether it's the architectural side or the engineering staff, is we all go about thin~ based off and on a sort of a process that we get into and sometimes we don't necessarily break it down into the finite way that, and fred some of the nuances that might vary from city to city. So he was able to save us some money so that's good. The big deal on here obviously is the weather component. We're looking at related specificaily to rain issues, and if you see in columns 5, 6 and 7, excuse me, where those total up to $333,000, plus and minus some dollars, and those are related to I think probably what we'd call discovery issues and weather issues primarily. And it's been, it's just been remarkable and we knew that we were going to have some soil issues going in. We sort of do with almost every project and we had kind of guessed at about $70,000. And we're off by aimost a factor of 4. More than 4. Almost 4 Va. So that really has been the most discouraging part of the project. Having said that, the good news is we caune in with a favorable bid from the get go, and that was a good deal. So the bottom, bottom line is typically when you set up a contingency, the theory on that contingency on a new project is maybe 4 percent. Maybe 5 percent. Somewhere right in there. The theory is that you sort of assume that you're going to go through that. That's kind of the factor that you need to build something. And again we were just fortunate to get good bids and it wound up that we sort of reinvested in soil by and large. I guess that's the best way to say it. You know the big picture, the project is coming aiong well Again we straggle moving into March when we should be getting warm weather, weather that be..,Lyins to thaw out the ground, helps with temporary heating and so fofda and so on and we're still you know 10 below the past few days so those aren't positive deals. But hopefully we're going to turn the corner as far as that goes. It was interesting to note, and I don't know if it was, why or City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 however. In the Metro section of the paper yesterday, on the last page, the back page where they talk about weatt~ they showed the whole chart of precipitation and temlx~ture and so forth for the entire year 2002 and it was really fascinating to see some of the data on precipitation and textures for the year and how the averages were dramatically out of whack- At any rate where, probably the bigger issue is just where we are right now and where we go from here and what I've tried to do in column 9 is anticipate the changes. We've got some opportunities to gain some money back and there's still some issues that are outstanding in terms of some refinements and some things that we are anticipating that will cost money. And we've taken a guess at thaL And then in the very bottom left there's a contingency amount that says there's about $57,000, $58,000, plus or minus left, but there's also additional items we have in column 9 that are another you know $36,000. So you add those two numbers together and that's kind of where we are in terms of what remains and I think that's about $90,000. $92,000-$93,000. So hopefully that sees us through. Now it also again under the heading of putting together charts that get complicated, and only make sense to the author. We did transfer out of thi~ project all the landscaping and we did put that into the landscape project that I think you just approved tonight was it? Or, okay. And which made sense because, for just strategic reasons and so on and so forth and obviously got a good bid with that as well. It's always the good news and bad news. We got a lousy economy so people are hungry but I think we're all going to be out of work in another 4 or 5 months, but that's a different issue. So I think that works out well from coordina~orf point of view and so forth. That's a good deal. Again there's a lot of numbers here and maybe the better thing to do right now is just to, I should add there is under wish list. If we were looking at issues that still could be reduced from the project, there really are two items. One is the ~ns fireplace, which finally found a home so we're reluctant to take that out, althougl~- Councilman Peterson: Library or not. Barry Pettit: Yeah. In the redesign, it's in the library, that's right. In the redesign I sustx~ it's going to be less. The number we have in there is $11,790. I sustx~ we're going to get a credit back from that because it's not going to cost that much by virtue of the redesign. So I'm hoping that we save a couple thousand dollars on that and that would be then to the plus. That would to our contingency fund. The other is the sidewalk that's been added between the parking deck and city hall. We have the stairs that comes down from the parking deck, okay, and then to make circulation a bit more convenient there was a sidewalk that was added along side of the deck, between city hall. There's about a 15-16 foot strip them. And it was determined that would be again a bit more of a convenient access for people coming up above. Having not to go through the deck and down but could come right down along side of the sidewalk. And it's probably a little bit less than $7,000 in terms of if we edited that out of the project that we could gain. But those are the immediate two things that just haven't been done yet that could be modified. Just on saving some money. Othe~ I think just about everythin~ else is committed. I'm working on some lighting options that might reduce a few dollars. Not substantially but I think worlcin~ with Kraus-Anderson, it's been a good relationship. They're good guys. I have to admit for being in the public bidding arena, which is always an interesting exercise because you wind up going with low bidders and s~ that yields some intemsling relationships. We were very fortunate to get Kraus-Anderson~ They're a good group of guys. They really are. Obviously one of the best construction companies in the coiupany, and along with that they can bring to bear some better pricing if you will by virtue of their fire power. So they've been good to work with. They know that we need to shave dollars and watch the pennies and we're working a few other items that might save us a few dollars. But I think: you knOW obviously we could go through these line by line but probably in more generality, as I suspect is where you want to be so if there's any of those questions you have, I'd certainly welcome that. 35 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Are them specific questions at this time, or general questions. Councilman Peterson: The only general question Fd have is what's your expectation, you said that March is going to be cold. We may have some more dollars to be expended for heating but I mean we're getting closer to the end. I mean do you expect any surprises? I guess if you could expect surprises. Barry Pettit: You know ~'s a side of me, you always sort of want to be optimize but every time you are you just get, but again as you go into a month. You finally get to March and say hey, things are going to turn the comer and we're still not breaking zero yet, and so it is a less than average circumstance. And so we're again as I said earlier, as ground should be thawing out or they should be able to you know get some benefit of some warmer weather, we're still struggling. Now again it's going to turn the comer dramatically we hope in the next few days and maybe it will turn the comer permanently but it is, it really has been an inte~ few months. I mean just about every kind of weather prediction you made has gone the wrong way with respect to this project. Just roll the dice you know. Councilman Lundquist: Barry what' s your thoughts on, I guess the $58,000 contingency worries me. We haven't put one wall up inside yet and we're less than 1 percent contingency left. That worries me. Barry Pettit: Yeah. The only thing I can help you with there is historically the, if you look at sort of the way cons~on goes together, it is the eacrly parts of consmu~on where there are the most variables. Obviously doing things below the ground where you can't see. Then you get into sort of the skeleton of the building with respect to the s~ and so forth and as those things settle down two things happen. Usually the unknowns become fewer, and the changes just become smaller because of the nature of something that might be wrong. I mean if a sheetrock wall is in the wrong place, that's dramatically different than 17,000 cubic yards of dirt And so I think what happens is it's just the increment of the problem reduces dramafi~y as you get closer. Your concern is a good observation but historically it just starts to get to be a smaller problem- Councilman Lundquist: Have the contracts for all of the interior, have they been bid and awarded? Barry Pettit: The only thing that's outstanding, well I should, there was a millwork contract that was just opened about a week and a haft ago. Now that's a county contract And they wound up with some good bids and so that's all been taken care of and that's their fia'nlture, chairs and tables and so forth, and then a series of millwork pieces. Custom millwork pieces in the library so that takes care of that. And I think the only thing that's outstanding fight now then would be the signage. And that breaks down into two pieces, and the lion share of that is really the county as the interior signage. And the only thing that the City really has to pay for is the two pylon signs. Pylon, that's not the right word. Todd Gerhardt: Monument. Barry Pettit: There you go. Monument signs, and then some signage on the building so it gets to be a pretty small piece of that deal. Councilman Lundquist: So you feel pretty comfortable with that 58,000 number given that we probably are still, with the cold weather I mean, you know we just approved a change order tonight for, I forget what the amount was but then we've got a change oxder already in the works 36 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 now for 79,000 bucks. We've got cold weather and who knows what else to come and, but you're feeling comfortable that we're not going to be out looking for money out of our, somewhere else to. Barry Pettit: I think the only, if I have a sense of nervousness it is still that final variable in terms of that cold weather affect. And so we're sitting right now with this sort of z~-maining tally and again I'm anxious in terms of that, and then I guess the only thing we can do to that is continually trying to tweak whatever we've got here and see if we can gain a few extra dollars as a buffer. The thing that probably is a, would be worth while is maybe even a reporting back within another month. I would say by, do you have a workshop first part of, you do this every, is this your first workshop of the month or how do you work this out? Todd Gerhardt: We have workshops every council meeting for about an hour and a half. Barry Pettit: Okay. So what would be the next, the second meeting in April. Councilman Lundquist: 24a. Well the 24~h of this month or April or whatever but. Mayor Furlong: It sounds like that would be, let's look at what's in our schedule and what we have coming up at that time and make sure we can fit it in before we. Councilman Peterson: Is that verbal or a written one? I mean this really requires your attendance, although we like seeing you. It's 9:00 on a Monday night Barry Pettit: I have nothing better to do. Mayor Furlong: You got to get up at 5:00 tomorrow morning. Barry Pettit: But hopefidly, hopefully by the time that mils around we get all of these unknowns out of the way. We can, and let's just do that. So the 24~ 28~'? Okay, great. And then I'll talk to Todd in terms of what time we might be on the agenda. Mayor Furlong: We'll get some report back. Whether or not we get graced with the presentation or not. Councilman Lundquist: Is that going to be enough time for us to react accordingly? I mean if the 28th of April comes around, are we going to have you know, if Barry's talking about, we've got really the fireplace and the sidewalk are the two things we've got in flux right now. Councilman Ayotte: But if everything goes south anyways, then we've got, we need time for the expenditures to occur. Councilman Lundquist: Yeah, what I'm asking is, on the 28~ of April we're not going to have the fireplace in and the sidewalk done, are we? Because then it doesn't do any good to meet at all. Councilman Peterson: I think it's early to tell you the truth~ I think we could do it in June. Give them a whole month there. Mayor Furlong: If I'm hearing your issue Brian, is there are a couple of items that have been listed as, what's the word that you used? 37 City Council Meeting - Mamh 10, 2003 Councilman Lundquist: The wish list. Mayor Furlong: Could still be deleted. And I don't think anybody's prol~ing that thi~ evening, but is there a timeframe that we need to be aware of on those items in case. Ban'y Pettit: Yeah, that's a good question. I would say that, my sense is, and actually I would like to get together in April you know and make it sort of a, because I think that probably would be the real watershed a_ste in terms of understanding all the dollars. Mayor Furlong: You're not going to be moving forward with those issues? Barry Pettit: No, I think we can lmm off on those. Councilman Lundquist: I would say that we do hold off on those. I mean those are only two grounds fight now to react to, and if we don't get in front of it and react before we spend the money, then we're just wasting everybody's time and we do what we do. Mayor Furlong: There's some items on here which I think are a little fleydble. You have an additional item on our $36,000 for additional items. I'm assuming that's an estimate, with something. Is that change order number 7 that's already done ~r? Barry Pettit: No. That one hasn't started yet but that's just thin~ that you know that are sart of circling around a little bit, yeah. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Todd Gerhardt: That was our best estimate of what potentially change ordex 7, 8 and 9 could total to. Councilman Peterson: There's already another cushion in there so. Barry Pettit: There is, yeah. Again we're looking at about $100,000, which is still the 2 percent thing. Is that right 2 percent? Todd Gerhardt: Brian does bring up a good point that we do have a safety net on thia and Barry and I can talk and figure out what the real ~adline before they put the sidewalk in or the fueplace. Letting K-A know that we potentially may want to do item delete on those two items as a safety net. Barry Petfit: Yeah. Well you know there is another one, just to throw out ~ and it probably wouldn't get started much before that either is, to tell you what it is but we're doing the heating under the sidewalk and I can't remember. Councilman Lundquist: That's tbe electric versus the water? Ban'y Pettit: Yeah. Do you see that on here? There it is. Okay, we got a credit for that deal, then we added in I think it's 19, almost $20,000 for the expanded snow melt. It's a neat deal. I mean I have to admit it's a neat deal but it still is you know not common for that to be put in. Councilman Ayotte: That's going to save a lot of monies down the road too. 38 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Barry Petfit: You know it really does. It does on two levels. Number one from, actually, well three levels maintenance side. It usually adds the longevity of mst~ials substantially when you don't go into the freeze thaw cycles that you get with everything else. Then of c. ourse there's the safety issues. All you need is one or two, you know one claim and that could pay for itself. So, but it's a good point. That's a good point~ Todd G~rhardt: Yeah really, the only access that we have for those people that park in the ramp, the upper portion is to come down thos~ st~s. To have 24F/snow removal on that is a huge benefit for the City. Barry Pettit: And I'm getting numbers on that fight now. As a matter of fact I spent some time today getting a little, kind of some diagram~ toge~ and going out and ge. Ring bids from two individuals that do this. There' s sort of two, seem to be two companies out there that do thi~ kind of below slab heating. And the work wouldn't start anyldme before that so we could ~y talk about that. See what that number looks like, and maybe it's even a function of, we definitely want to do the steps. You have to do the steps, certainly no matter what. But then we may decide that we want to wean it down from there and it's not quite as large an area. But I really would feel more comfortable sort of reporting back at the end of April. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Good, anything. Councilman Peterson: As an aside to the ~ steps in that area, they am great but tell you the one thing that screws them up is not having proper dmina~, and I've seen it. Because all of a sudden you get an ice pond at the bottom and it's worst than having the steps so. Barry Pettit: Yeah, you know I never thought, that's probably the reason you want to thaw out mom than just the steps, because you would wind up with exac~y with that. But we could still manage to kind of reduce it from what we have, but we can take a look at that. Maybe we get some favorable numbers but right now as long as we get folks competing against each othe~, I me. an people are giving away wore They really are. There's just no better time to build so, on that good note. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Ban'y Pettit: Yeah, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you for your time. Councilman Lundquist: Just so I don't get any phone calls or e-mails or any of that sutff. I'mnot proposing that we whack the fireplace or sidewalk. I just want to. Todd Gerhardt: Temporary hold. Councilman Peterson: I thought I heard that. Mayor Furlong: I thought so too. Councilman Lundquist: So again. Councilman Ayotte: Look, he's rnnning out the door. 39 City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Lundquist: I'm not proposing that but I would like to see us before we lay out any cash on that, like to see where we're aL Todd Gerhardt: We'll try to hold onto it the last minute to see where we are. When you've got to move ahead and you got the millwork going on in there, you've got to start with the fireplace so. Councilman Peterson: So we'd take, let's say we came up short. Is it coming directly out of the general fund or is that the only option? Todd Gerhardt: Yeal~ I mean it's the only thing I can come up with. Things out of your reserves or levy it back the next year. Councilman Peterson: Okay. Councilman Ayotte: Let's see. Mayor Furlong: Cross that bridge. We've completed the new business items on our agenda so move onto council presentations. COUNCIL PRF~ENTATIONS. Councilman Peterson: It's a quiet month at Southwest Metro Transit so nothing scintillating to report. Councilman Lundquist: Saw your picture in the annual reporL You're looking pretty dapper. Councilman Peterson: Like I say, I didn't wear a tie tonight. I wanted to let you guys shine tonight. Mayor Furlong: I think that was the first one I've ever seen you in actually. Councilman Peterson: It's the only one that I had. Mayor Furlong: Alright, any other repons? Councilman Ayotte: Nothing from me. Councilman Lundquist: Had the Trunk Highway 41 river crossing policy board meeting on the 20~ of this month and Teresa and I will be getting together before that so that she can advise me of what to say and not to say. At this point it's pretty pre~ still. I think it's more of an information gathering session than anything so more to follow after that. Mayor Furlong: Very good. Thank you. ADMINI~.qTRATIVE PRF_~ENTATIONS. Todd Gerhardt: You do have the B&R's in your packet summary of 2003. Bruce will be modifying those as he does his final journal entries and get you those modified pages but he does believe we will be in the black as a part of 2002 and he just needs to complete a few journal City Council Meeting - March 10, 2003 Councilman Lundquist: So we will see a final summary? Todd Oer~t: Yes. Councilman Peterson: I'd like to see a summary versus the 20 pages. Todd Gerhardt: Okay. Mayor Furlong: And once we, just a question. Once they complete and close out the year then we can start getting current year financi~ statements, is that correct? Todd Gerhardt: That' s correct. You'll have that hopefully by our next meeting. Mayor Furlong: For January? Todd Gerhardt: Yep. Mayor Furlong: Great. Okay, anything else? Todd Gerhardt: That's all I have. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any discussion on the correspondence packet that we received? Seeing none, we've completed the items on the agenda. Is there a motion to adjourn? Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Lumtquiat seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 9:25 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 41