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PRC 2016 05 24 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MAY 24, 2016 Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Brent Carron, Jim Boettcher, Rick Echternacht, and Lauren Dale MEMBERS ABSENT: Luke Thunberg and Jennifer Hougham STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Katie Favro, Recreation Supervisor; and Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director PUBLIC PRESENT: Marty Walsh Carver County APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Kelly: Anybody want to add or delete anything from the agenda tonight? Hoffman: Public announcement regarding the Memorial Day ceremony. Kelly: Okay. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Kelly: Moving on to public announcements, go ahead Todd. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Kelly, good evening to the rest of the commissioners. Just wanted to invite everybody to the annual Chanhassen Memorial Day Ceremony that is taking place on th Monday, May 30 at City Center Park right by the Veteran’s Monument so this insert, this one that Todd has right there that will be inserted into the Villager this week. Just trying to notify people that it’s coming up. If anybody would like a brochure, that’s the actual ceremony I guess brochure that will be event brochure that will be there the day of so feel free to take one with you. So the Chanhassen Legion is the sponsor of the event. The City of Chanhassen helps out with in kind services as far as coordinating stage and sound and any other type of services that we may provide to make the day a memorable event so we anticipate 500 plus people there that day so it’s always a nice event put on. I think people of Chanhassen really enjoy the event and Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 look forward to it on an annual basis so please feel free for attending on Monday and we’ll see you there. Hoffman: Staff, Jerry coordinates with the Legion. Sasha will be there, our intern and myself right for staff will be assisting that day. Mayor Laufenburger will give the keynote address. Ruegemer: Yep. Mayor Laufenburger will be the keynote. Hoffman: And that’s at noon at the Memorial. Scharfenberg: And then there’ll be a picnic afterwards at the Legion? Ruegemer: Correct. Scharfenberg: Okay. Kelly: So I’d also like to add kudos to everybody in the park and rec departments and the other departments that helped out for everything that was set up at Paisley Park. Was done in a quick and efficient manner. We got lights up. We put lights up through the tunnels. You got sheriff over there. You got barriers put up. A lot of work was done in a short period of time and I’m impressed by all your employees and I just wanted to pass that along. Hoffman: Thank you. I’ll let them know. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Boettcher moved, Echternacht seconded to approve the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated April 26, 2016 as presented. COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE, KATE AANENSON, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR. Aanenson: Thank you members of the Park and Recreation Commission. I’m Kate Aanenson, the Community Development Director for the City and my mission the next few years is the th Comprehensive Plan. For those of you that…that we had on April 20. This is going to give you an overview of that and then also I want you to be thinking about the Comprehensive Plan. As you know the Comprehensive Plan is our guiding document of how the city’s going to grow and what we see the community looking like in 2040 so not only is the park and rec chapter important but they all need to be integrated and I appreciated the opportunity for all the commissions to get together and think about this in a more comprehensive. If you think about in 2008 when we updated the Comprehensive Plan last time we had some open houses but the document was pretty flat. The economy was pretty soft and didn’t anticipate a lot of changes so 2 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 since that time and things are changing rapidly within the community so we want to make sure that we’re responsive to some of the interest. Strengths of the community. Weaknesses and things that we want to shore up so besides a park and rec as I mentioned, the land use. The housing chapter. Sewer and water. All those things and natural resources are really important to why people live here. So what I’d like to start off is just summarizing the, what we discussed at th the meeting on April 20. So one of the exercises that we did as a group was just talk about Chanhassen’s strengths and I just want to point out again for you as the park and rec, the open space recreational opportunities obviously is really high. That people like that. They like that it’s attractive and walkable so when you think about just trails we as planners always think of sidewalks. Getting to schools. Getting to commercial districts is also really important. We also think about that as we think of the different housing opportunities. Seniors still like to walk to be able to get downtown. Young families like to be able to walk to come down here to the events that we have here. The library so we think about that so again some of the other entertainment. Fishing. Fourth of July. I think the gathering place that we have down here is really important when we think about those other opportunities so that was the strengths. Kind of the collective summary of that. And then why would someone want to live in Chanhassen? Obviously we think that we’re a close knit community. That we take care of each other. A small town feel. A great place to raise a family. High quality of life choice and oddly enough Prince was mentioned a couple times and this is actually the night before he passed away that we had this meeting. So we took 5 critical issues that we thought were of most importance as we look to the future. As you know we did the corridor study and I think part of the update of the park and rec you’re going to look in more detail. Maybe there’s some opportunities there for some connection for some regional trails and some local trails that you’ll be looking at but that connection of 101 is really important to get over to the new bridge from the top of Lyman Boulevard so groups rated them different. All but one group rated it really high but it’s important as we look at, from the land use perspective, commerce going back and forth over the river. Employees getting to work. Also it’s important for us to get sewer and water down there. Without that infrastructure we wouldn’t be able to get sewer and water down there. That opens up more opportunities for development so it’s key to our ability to continue to provide land supply. Otherwise people are going to go further west to Victoria or to Waconia if we can’t get that property in. Lifestyle center. This project will more than likely come in this, yet this summer. We anticipate that coming to the Planning Commission potentially in July so for us this is very important. Again the land use consideration we’re looking at a mix of housing and retail but we also see this as a gathering place. One of the questions we talked about was downtown. How we continue to make downtown, you can see under considerations, negative impact to downtown so we see them differently. We see this area as our, kind of our daily needs. People come here to go to the library. Go to the bank. Get their groceries but we see the lifestyle center as more entertainment component so I think when you’re thinking about, as Todd’s got on here programmed update the parks and rec, that will be something you really want to give some consideration to. Maybe that’s another gathering place as we look at entertainment as, you know right now we have the ballfields and trails but maybe a different type of entertainment that families can go to and how would you envision that so I think that’s something that you should certainly be thinking about as you’re looking at your park plan updates. So again we want to make sure that they 3 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 compliment each other and are not a detriment to each other. The new lifestyle center in the downtown because we always think that our downtown gathering place is one of our strengths. And also lifestyle center being welcoming for seniors. We talked about that. There’s housing opportunities down there. Maybe some potential. Water conservation. Very important as we move forward in the Comprehensive Plan and you know we’ve got Water Wise that the Environmental Commission’s working on. Trying to reduce water. On the council agenda next Monday night the City Engineer will be talking about a study that they’ve done. It’s very important for us as we move forward is how we promote water conservation and reduce consumption so that’s really important. I know Todd’s looked at that for ballfields and watering and how we manage that to be more efficient and so this will be, we’re mandated in our Comprehensive Plan to show how we’re managing that also. If you guys have questions on that feel free to, if you have specific questions on anything that was talked about. Park and Rec Master Plan. Todd’s out working on that right now and working to select his consultant and get approval from the council on that. What I’m going to talk about are some of the demographics that I attached but I want you to think kind of what the considerations here where you’ve got other activities like we talked about the lifestyle. What other things do we think about as the community’s maturing? What other needs are out there for recreation or gathering that make a healthy community? So again you can see the suggestions. More walkable. Accessible for seniors as we’re getting older. Benches, sidewalks, those sort of things so. And then Emerald Ash Borer. Having a management plan. Actually Jill Sinclair, our City Forester presented that to the City Council last night and there was a really good discussion on that. Obviously that impacts your parks. The value of your parks. Our public streets so right now Jill’s doing some experimental treating of some of those trees and I know when we do a street project that’s one of the things we take into consideration if the trees are in not of best of shape then we’ll take them down now. Replace them as long as they’re in there with the street instead of trying to go back and retrofit those but we’re trying to be proactive so Jill will be back in a couple of months with a formalized plan for adoption so we’re in good shape and have a plan and I’m sure Todd will be sharing that with you or have Jill come and talk to you about that. How it impacts some of your park planning and management of the assets that you have right now because certainly not getting ahead of it would be catastrophic. So those are the main ones. You can see looking at the scoring do they, you know light rail was pretty low. These are some other things that people put up as critical issues. Walkability but downtown redevelopment. That was high. Infilling. That’s development that’s going in areas that you know the easy pieces, the flat ones are gone right now where there’s sewer and water availability. There’s those 10 acre sites that are sometime impacting people that are used to looking at larger areas where there’s maybe some vegetation or wildlife and certainly senior housing and we’ll be talking to the senior commission on this so I’m going to the different commissions and sharing this information with them. But now I’d just like to take a little bit as you’re thinking about working on your update of your park and rec plan with your consultant. Things that I would encourage you to be thinking about as we move this into the Comprehensive Plan. Again all of the sections of the Comprehensive Plan, instead of being in solos we want to be integrated so we’re thinking about all these visions or all these goals and they’re integrated with the other chapters so the natural resource plan, preserving these. Getting ahead of some of the invasive species is also mirroring some of the goals that you 4 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 would have in the park and rec plan too for managing, if that makes sense. So just want to share with you, this is what the city’s going to look like in 2040. This is for the met council so you look at population estimates and forecasts here. So if you look at what we expect 37,000. Right now as of April, 2015 we’re at 25,000 people in the city right now so in 2040, put my laser pointer in here so you can see where I am. Oops. So we’ll be at 37,000 and then this is the households. 14,000 households, that’s the estimated. So you have to look at what that is persons per household and that is a big impact because right now we portray ourselves as a community of young families so a lot of the stuff we do is geared for young families so what I’m encouraging you to do is think beyond that to say you know we’ve got a group that’s active in pickleball but there’s other things. Just walkability. Some other things. The programming down here very important for a healthy community to get seniors together. They check on each other. Some do congregate dining and they do the tours. So this is kind of our breakdown. Again kind of where we are in, this is 2010-2014 data so we know that this community as the United States as a whole is aging. Because we have a lot of young families here we’re not going to feel the wave quite as much but Carver County certainly will. Especially if you go further west in Carver County so things to be thinking about that. Average household size, it’s gone down. It used to be almost 3 20 years ago, 3 persons per household. So what I did is, this is right now where we are at 2.7. That’s Carver County, 2.75. Chanhassen is at 2.74 just slightly below that but you can see the rest of the region is, the Twin Cities there’s 2.5 but we’re going to be dropping down as we move out to 2040 to closer to 2.5 ourselves so the households make-up’s are different than we are. You’re not having 3 kids in a house so it’s going to be changing significantly. Or single head of household. One person per house so that’s going to be changing so you think about what are the demands and services that those people want as you’re looking at planning. The other thing I’d encourage you to think about is we have a lot of employment in the city. There’s a lot of people that like to walk on their lunch hour. They like to walk to go get something to eat. They just like to exercise just like Jerry and I took the opportunity before the meeting to try to get out and exercise before a meeting. There’s people that really enjoy Lake Susan where they can maybe play pick up basketball so if you look at what we’re, our employment base right now may be around 11,000. We’re going to be up at 17,000 and you think you know those people also want opportunities. We know a lot of them go to lunch in the community. They might go to the library. Pick up some books for their kids but also other opportunities for them to just partake in the community, whether it’s walking for exercise or just walking to get somewhere that they want or need to do business so again as you’re looking at your plan I would encourage you to be thinking about the people that are here during the daytime population. Not always just our residents who might not be programmed activities but want to partake in some more leisure things or entertainment kind of things. So I put together a snapshot of the Comprehensive Plan land use. This is something that we have to do to send to the met council. We re-examine what percentages we have of the different land use so we look at our residential. We look at how much is in commercial. Office industrial. We have some mixed uses which commercial and residential. How much is in roadway. How much is in agricultural land and then how much is undeveloped or water so you can see if you look at what a big healthy percentage of that is actually in you know park and recreation acres. So if you go to this column here, our biggest land use is residential. Always has been, always will. But then a pretty significant part is 5 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 agricultural right now but that will be redistributed as we develop. There’s some that’s undeveloped that’s down at the bottom by the Minnesota River but a big percentage then is in park and rec. And you’ll be adding some parks as we look at some of these areas like we talked about as we go further south along the river way. Some of the things we talked about I know when we did our tour we talked about some opportunities for some regional bike trail connections. Some opportunities where people can actually have view sheds looking over the river. Some interpretative things so I think that’s an opportunity that people coming through Chanhassen can learn more about the river valley itself. So that’s really what I want to share with you. I know we put together another joint tour. Love doing those with the Environmental Commission with the Planning Commission and the Park and Recreation Commission. We’ve th got that scheduled for Wednesday, August 10 so I’d encourage you to give Todd some ideas what you’d like to look at. If there are certain things. I think one of the things we have on our radar is probably going over to the lifestyle center at Powers and just south of Lyman. Maybe looking at that and thinking you know what could be there and some opportunities there and maybe we end up back down again along the 61 corridor so willing to take your suggestions and get some ideas. The Planning Commission will be looking at some ideas too so that’s really all I had to share with you. I don’t know if you had any other questions or thoughts about how that went, the process or feedback. Echternacht: Will that joint session be at 6:00 again? Aanenson: Yeah you know we like to start at 6:00 only, so we get enough light. Yeah. Yeah. Probably do some snacks or something too. Always good. Scharfenberg: So Kate could you just give us a, in terms of a timeline with the different plans that are being put together. At what point will that Comprehensive Plan kind of all come together? Aanenson: Yeah, that’s a great question. So I know one of the things that Todd, some of the consultants back in his program is that they want to do what we call pop up meetings and that’s something we wanted to do so we want to go to activities where something’s going on and talk about the Comprehensive Plans and have some maps out. I know that’s something his consultant wants to do. We’re trying to put some rough drafts together by this fall. Certainly we’ll, we have to submit by 2018. We have to have it submitted but we want to start having some rough drafts so we would like your’s to be done and then you feel good about that then we’ll take it with everything else kind of have different public hearings on the different chapters but before we do that we really want to get out and take it out on the road. Like you say we had a couple meetings in the library last year and we had different stations set up but I’m not sure the reception was the best so we want to go out to the people so you know I’m sure Todd’s going to direct the consultant where he thinks there are great opportunities. I just listened to a webinar on that and some people do it where they have races. You know there’s a large group of people get feedback and some of those things. I know that’s a lot of what the community outside residents enjoy those opportunities to come here. Whether it’s triathlons. The Tour de Tonka. 6 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Opportunities you know to see the community. Who we are and get those people’s impressions. What do you think of Chanhassen? I think just as you were talking about with the Prince memorial, people got a good impression of who we are and how we presented ourselves but from our residents what do they need too or people that work here so how do we go out and find out people that work here, what is their experience. I have a hard time getting across these streets. I’d like to come downtown more or whatever their experience is and some of your trails are inadequate. Whatever that is. It would be nice just to have some informalized areas where we could throw horse shoes. I don’t know I’m just saying things that we want to listen to and I know that’s something that Todd’s working on to do all that with the update so. Hoffman: Commissioner Scharfenberg speaking directly to the, we have a preferred consultant that staff will be recommending to the City Council. We have to negotiate a contract with that group. It’s HKGI and their timeline has March of 2017 to September of 2017 to prepare the system plan and the Comprehensive Plan chapter so that’s their timeline starting in July with the project orientation kickoff. So that’s the timeline. July of this year through September of next year. Aanenson: Yeah so what we’ll be doing is taking some of the analytics that we have already so I’m just showing you a portion of those so some of that we’re going to talk about and it’s where we are in housing. The different types of housing. That’s a need we have right now for some market rate seniors so just some different types of housing so we’ve got some analytics that we’re just going to go out there and kind of let people see, you know this is what the make-up. This is how big we’re going to be. This is how many employees we’re going to have. What does that mean to you? What are your concerns about that? How do you feel about the lifestyle center? What’s the worst thing that could happen out there so those are some of the things that we’ll be just kind of doing a listening session and incorporating into our plans. So hopefully by next spring we’ll be having some hearings on those. That’s our goal. Kelly: Other questions for Kate? Boettcher: On your population on households in Chanhassen, it looks a little bit aggressive and just looking at the number of households from currently right around 9,000 to 14,000 by 2040. But then looking at the acreage available, agricultural and undeveloped so most of that would be south, like the new corridor? 101. Aanenson: Yep, yeah. Boettcher: In that area. Does that look realistic I mean because you’re looking at 15 to 18 percent increase every 10 years and number of people and number of households as compared to what it had been. You know was 10 percent basically from 2000 to 2010. There was a big jump from 1990 to 2000 but you know we always talk about running out of room but there is that much available yet? 7 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Aanenson: Yep, that’s a great question. So these numbers come from the Metropolitan Council so what they do is they look at our land supply and they make assumptions based on what they believe the market conditions are going to be and so right now we know that we have a lot of requests for the lots that are maybe, instead of 15,000 maybe 12,000 square foot lots and we also if you do one apartment building at 150 units it changes that so we’re having more diversity in product so that’s one of the things that’s going to affect it. And then we also look at persons per household and that sort of thing so they gave us all their analytics of how they got to these numbers and we feel pretty confident. You know things can change. The market could slow down again. We won’t get there and that would just push it out further but yet do we have the capacity for that many? Yes we do. Yeah. If you think about even in the lifestyle center up against existing neighborhoods there’ll be a transition there. They envision some apartments there so you think about there’s kind of a committed neighborhood that would support some of those uses there, down there too. The employment, yes we can make that too but that’s always you know dependent on, some of it’s dependent on whether or not we get 101 built. That’s huge for the infrastructure improvements so that’s a good question. Hoffman: Lifestyle center just rough numbers housing, is there any estimates? Aanenson: I’m sorry I don’t know off the top of my head. I do know that it’s. Hoffman: Hundreds though. Aanenson: Oh yeah. Yeah. Hundreds of units. Yeah I have a better idea of what the commercial square footage would be you know, 600,000. It’s pretty big so. Carron: Do you have any idea, again on undeveloped land how we compare to our surrounding cities? Aanenson: That’s another good question. So I’ve told the council before you know you can do how much does this city have in residential, how much do they have but a lot of it’s really dependent on your infrastructure. So if you were to compare us to Eden Prairie or Minnetonka or even Plymouth. Plymouth has a lot of office industrial which is great for your tax base because really what you want is for every household you want 2 jobs. That’s the best. Or 3. That’s Edina. That’s Plymouth because they’ve got great interchanges. They’ve got a lot of traffic. Supporting network of that so for us right now, I mean you’ve got Highway 5. Now with 212 it helps but that’s you need to get the goods and services to market so that’s affecting a lot of whether or not you get all those, all those jobs. I forgot your original question. Scharfenberg: How we rated with undeveloped land to surrounding communities. Aanenson: So it’s hard to compare because you have different assets. We have a lot of lakes and wetlands. Why people love to live here because they love the trees, the lakes, the woods, the wildlife but we don’t have the complete road system yet. You know 212 certainly has helped. 8 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 You know there’s Highway 5 pinches down once you get to the Arboretum so some of those things affect our ability to draw some of those, to grow at the same rate so we can’t really compare. Yeah so they may have more office industrial. Hoffman: We’re similar to Chaska. As you go north and east and there’s less property there and then you go west it’s you know not unlimited but Carver’s going to annex a lot of land. Victoria’s going to annex a lot of land. Waconia’s got a lot of room. Aanenson: Yeah, they have townships they can annex that’s different and I would say too if you look at Eden Prairie and Minnetonka they’re, except for the light rail and development along those lines they’re really out of office industrial. We have a lot of people looking at Chanhassen Chaska for office and industrial property because they don’t have it. Hoffman: The desirability because you’re closer in and you’re on the 212 corridor makes Chanhassen really desirable. Aanenson: Yeah, right. So we’re positioned, going back to the question on growth rate, we’re positioned because Minnetonka’s out of their land supply too really for significant amount of development. Nobody else has got 120 acres at an interchange like we do on 212 so we’re in a good position on that so. Well I look forward to working with you guys on as you update your plan. Kelly: Well thank you Kate. Very nice presentation. I have one comment that doesn’t have to do with park and rec. Has to do with infrastructure. For those of us who live on the south side of 5 it would be nice to see when the State re-does 5 at some point like having a bridge go over Powers so there’s a way for us to get into town without having to stop and wait for 5 minutes. Aanenson: You know that’s under consideration right now. I don’t know what the cost is but that’s always been something that we, when we looked at the comp plan last time we did a special study to look at…consultants had recommend that whether it’s a roundabout or overpass or something like that but certainly that is something that…yeah. Kelly: So obviously that’s long term but I just wanted to. Aanenson: So transportation is one of the chapters on it so what we’ll do then is we’ll identify those areas that need improvement. Whether it’s…so they’re on the radar so sometimes those come from…so good point. Kelly: Thank you Kate. Aanenson: Thank you. 9 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 RECOMMEND APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION OF SUPPORT FOR CARVER COUNTY MASTER PLAN AMENDMENT, SOUTHWEST REGIONAL TRAIL CONNECTION. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly, members of the commission. My comments will be very brief. Just as an introduction of the trail corridor and it’s history and then I’ll ask Carver County Parks Director Marty Walsh to get up and speak to the change in their Comprehensive Plan that they’re requesting that we support. It will eventually be through a resolution and then by the City Council and that’s the recommendation you have tonight before you. This is the railroad trail in the southern part of our community. Now it’s called the Minnesota River Bluff Trail. Called the LRT trail or the light rail transit. Hennepin County Regional Authority Trail but in the mid 80’s and into the early 90’s it was a railroad grade and so there was railroad tracks there. The ties were still in place. It was not being used as a trail. Eventually people said you know what, this corridor would be better served as a pedestrian corridor throughout the southwest metro and so the tracks came off and the ties came out. The railroad ties came out and in the early 90’s, it was 1994 the City signed an agreement with the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority to allow us to utilize it as a trail. That was in it’s entirety. All the way from Pioneer Trail at the Eden Prairie border to Chaska at the Chaska border. Then some time about midway through that history Three Rivers Park District came to town and said we’d like to take our regional trail system out of Hennepin County into Carver County and create a trail head at Bluff Creek Drive and so we allowed our agreement to lapse. Hennepin County, or excuse me Three Rivers Park District picked that up and they took over the trail section on the east side of town to Bluff Creek Drive where they have that nice trail head. Now by this action Carver County will come in and amend their Comprehensive Plan to take that leadership position of managing that section of trail from the Chaska boundary and then coming east to meet up with the Three Rivers Park District piece at the Bluff Creek corridor so that was, at the Bluff Creek Drive so that was not a part of the County’s plan and I’ll allow Marty to get up and speak to that. What the change means and why they would like to move forward with that. Marty Walsh: Thank you Mr. Chair and members. Marty Walsh, Carver County Parks. Kelly: And Marty, we also ask everybody to give us their address when they speak to us. Marty Walsh: Home address or work address? Kelly: Home. Marty Walsh: 683 Woodridge Drive, Chaska, Minnesota. Kelly: Thank you. Marty Walsh: But I am an original resident of Chanhassen. I lived across from the Chanhassen Elementary School for about 17-18 years so. 10 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Hoffman: And a past employee. Marty Walsh: And a past employee too so yeah there’s some history here. But again thank you for allowing me to present here tonight. I am here to talk to you about the master plan. The master plan for the southwest regional trail connection and as the diagram that’s up on your screen. You can see in a red line there it connects both the north and the south LRT lines. It meanders it’s way through Chaska along the levee system and then starts angling up towards Victoria through Clover Ridge and then ultimately ending up very near Carver Park Reserve and that alignment was something that was worked on with the cities of Chaska and Victoria back in 2006. Actually their alignments were not going to meet up so it was nice that we were able to kind of step in and work on an alignment that actually did meet up and so we’ve been working since 2006 on this alignment and the way that most of it will go forward is that as development occurs the trail will be constructed. The overall width or length is about 13 miles. I want to say that there’s about 7 or 8 miles of that trail that’s actually in place but there are certainly gaps in there at this point in time. So just a little bit more about the background here. You know some of the reasons why that’s a very nice trail is that it does connect to some very significant open space areas. The Minnesota River valley. You can actually get on the, on that trail alignment. Find your way to Highway 41 and cross over to the Minnesota Valley State Trail and get into Shakopee that way if you’d like to do that. And then of course going further to the north you do ultimately align with Carver Park Reserve in the city of Victoria. In 2014, so kind of bringing you fast forward here from 2000, our initial planning effort in 2006 to 2014 we made application for federal funding for three-quarters of a mile segment of trail and that’s a segment that Todd had just mentioned. It essentially starts at about County Road 61 or near where the railroad tracks would have ended there at County Road 61 and then continues eastward about three- quarters of a mile to Bluff Creek Drive and so that’s the segment of trail that we are looking to amend. This, the original master plan did not include that segment. It was again within the limits of the city of Chaska and the city of Victoria but as we made application for this and then subsequently have been found that we would be awarded funding for the trail project, in order for me to also bring Metropolitan Council funds to the table our master plan needs to be consistent. It needs to incorporate this new segment of trail and so that’s one of the reasons why we’re here tonight is to seek your support for making sure that this gets included so we can bring additional funding to the table to construct and design the trail. Just a little bit about the federal funding for the project. It’s about $250,000 dollars in federal funds that would come this way. We are also anticipating that we’d bring about another $130,000 of Metropolitan Council funds to this project. That three-quarters of a mile segment right now is estimated just slightly less than about $400,000 for us to construct. It would be a 10 foot wide trail surface. One of the unique features of that trail is that it will have a scenic overlook near the Seminary Fen and I don’t know Jerry if you can pull up the kind of more detailed diagram? You’ll have to kind of wing through the number of slides here until you get probably near the end. Hoffman: Is there a spot for that overlook that’s wide enough? 11 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Marty Walsh: Yeah we were out with the consultant and it’s not great but we believe that we can hug the trail up. There’s a spot where the trail’s about 20 feet wide across and it’s about midway. You’re going to keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Now you’re getting close. Now I think you have to go up just a hair I think. Yep keep going. You’ve got one, there you go. Right there. So that is the segment that we’re talking about. The orange what I’ll call a scenic overlook. That’s the approximate location of that. That’s about the widest portion of the trail where it’s kind of flat and it’s about 18 to 20 feet wide at that location. Then of course there’s very steep embankments for that. We would envision that the rest stop area would have an interpretive panel talking a great deal about the Seminary Fen. A couple of benches, a bike rack and a garbage can receptacle is kind of our standard design at those sorts of locations. The actual trail head facility, the green dot facility is something that Three Rivers Park District manages and we’re not proposing to do any improvements at that location. That is on their area if you will of that trail so. I would stand for any questions that you may have but in general what the document does is it makes some really minor amendments just incorporating this additional segment into the master plan. Kelly: Any questions for Marty? Hoffman: Chairman and commissioners, this is another example of where the City is an interim user. This is a great relationship that we have here so we came in. We’re an interim user of the trail. People now recognize it as a trail but we always intended it to be a regional trail segment and so now for the County to come in and take that responsibility, up it to a trail head which is already in place is really the highest and best use of that corridor so it’s a good plan. Kelly: Thank you Todd. No questions or any other comments or does somebody want to put it to the question? Scharfenberg: I make a motion that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends the City Council approval of the resolution of support for the Carver County Master Plan Amendment, Southwest Regional Trail connection. Kelly: We have a proposed motion as stated. Is there a second? Boettcher: Second. Scharfenberg moved, Boettcher seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends the City Council approves the resolution of support for the Carver County Master Plan Amendment, Southwest Regional Trail Connection. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. Marty Walsh: Thank you Chair and members. Kelly: Thank you Marty. 12 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 th Hoffman: This will appear on a consent agenda in the June 13 I believe it is City Council meeting. INTRODUCTION OF 2016 KLEINBANK SUMMER CONCERT SERIES. Kelly: Thank you Katie. Favro: Thank you Chair Kelly and commissioners. The City of Chanhassen is proud to present the 2016 KleinBank Summer Concert Series at City Center Park plaza. The concert series is in th it’s 12 year and will feature 9 performances throughout the summer. The concerts are Thursday evenings beginning at 7:00 p.m. and there’s one daytime performance that is geared towards th children and families that will begin at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, August 4. For each of the performances the City will be selling concessions including popcorn, candy and cold beverages. KleinBank of Chanhassen has again agreed to be the title sponsor of the series. Their sponsorship of $2,500 is greatly appreciated and helps offset the expenses for the program. The KleinBank check was presented last night at the City Council meeting so that was always a highlight and then KleinBank will also be providing free water to the audience for each of the performances and for the children’s performances they hand out balloons. We are pleased with the relationship we have with KleinBank and we appreciate all they have done for this program. We continue to explore creative and innovative marketing strategies to promote each performance. Promotional magnets were purchased and will be distributed to spectators at the first few concerts of the season. Flyers will also be distributed to local businesses in the community for increased exposure. Those magnets I just handed out to you we have them around City Hall so when people come into the front desk or pay their water bill they’re there for them to pick up. We also bring them to KleinBank and so they distribute them out there. Does anybody have any questions? Kelly: I don’t have any questions but I think a lot of people are looking forward to it. It’s always a great series and you do have it up here on the flyer that picnic dinners, wine, beer and non-alcoholic beverages are permitted at our concerts and yeah, I’ve brought beer and wine before. It’s fun to sit in the concert and just sip on it a little bit so it’s really a great activity for people in the city and I’m glad we’re doing it again with KleinBank and thanks for all that you do to put it together. Favro: No problem, thank you. Hoffman: Want to tell them about the check last night? Favro: What the? Hoffman: The check. 13 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Favro: Yeah it was, the big check was presented last night at the City Council. Tyler Miller was the member from KleinBank who presented it. Hoffman: KleinBank rep was here. Brought the $2,500 check. Presented it to the Mayor and the City Council. It’s a pretty nice deal. I don’t remember the exact years do you recall? How many years has it been? 10? Ruegemer: It’s been a long time. Hoffman: …when any business gives you $20,000 over a period of time, you know that’s a significant investment back into the community and so when you’re in KleinBank just say thank you. Sometimes it’s just those small stops and let you know that you’re on the park board and that you appreciate it. Those kind of thank you’s mean a lot and when you do that then they’re going to tell somebody else at the bank. Somebody else at the bank and the word’s going to get back to the right people and that’s going to insure that our money comes next year so we appreciate it if you do that. Kelly: Great, thank you. RECREATION PROGRAMS: LAKE ANN PARK SUMMER UPDATE. Kelly: I think summer time is here Jerry. Ruegemer: It is Chair Kelly, thank you. Just a real brief synopsis of kind of what’s coming up here in the summer. We’re going to be opening up the concession and boat rental, watercraft rentals here this coming weekend so Memorial Day Saturday morning will be the first opening shifts on that so 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. We’ll be open 7 days a week during that. It seemed like Memorial weekend’s a little bit later this year so we’re probably going to open up the next Wednesday after Memorial Day with school groups and that coming in to open up every day th then at that point 7 days a week. The lifeguards will be starting on June 4 so we’re really going to go from Memorial Day right into really the opening of the beach season for that and they’ll be opened up til about the second week in August for that so. Concessions, it’s exciting. We had a great 2015. Our revenues were the highest in our history out there so it was a great summer with that. Building on the momentum of the paddleboards we had an agreement again with Twin Cities Paddleboards. We had 6 paddleboards last year. We added 2 more this year for a total of 8 so those are extremely popular and great demand for those and so I think our revenues will be right up there again if not increased again from last year so. Picnics are really busy. What we’ve done certainly with CAA ball tournaments. There’s a number of tournaments, I think 5 throughout the course of the summer so there’s 2 in June and 3 in July out there so Lake Ann’s going to be extremely busy. What we’ve been doing is taking an active role in not booking picnics on certain weekends or most of the weekends so we allow additional parking for the 14 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 tournaments because they are quite large for that so we’re looking forward to having a large number of out of town guests in Lake Ann Park really to showcase our beautiful community parks so. So there’s a lot going on. A lot of picnic phone calls every day. A lot of facility rentals. You know going down to the beach and it really is starting to pick up down there so, and we’re getting some softball games in too so any questions for me? Kelly: Good with the reservations coming in are there any spots left still for this summer? Ruegemer: You know I think between the, nothing in June at the Lakeside or the Klingelhutz Pavilion. Lake Susan I think had 2 Saturdays left. That was it. July is filling up fast and August I think there were 2 days between the Klingelhutz and the Lakeside that are available right now. The Miracle Kids Triathlon or the Pinky Swear Triathlon will be coming back again to Lake Ann thth Park this summer. I think that was the third week in August. I want to say around the 17-18 of August so that will be a pretty big number again out there for that so Lake Ann in hopping big time. Kelly: Well I can imagine and I’m assuming the lake’s already somewhat warm for people to swim since it was early out this year? Ruegemer: Sure. Boettcher: 66.3 degrees. Ruegemer: We just had that conversation yesterday. That’s funny. Scharfenberg: Just something to think about in terms of Lake Ann and maybe purchases but people I think will have their own but I was, I rode by Lake Riley the other day and the whole mocking thing has taken off and people using the trees and I don’t know if that’s something we would consider maybe buying some to rent to people. Something to think about. Ruegemer: I know they’re popular in my house. Scharfenberg: Yeah. Ruegemer: Thank you. Hoffman: What is it? Scharfenberg: Hammocks. Kelly: Oh hammocks, okay. 15 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Scharfenberg: Yeah mocking that’s the term of heart now. People are mocking. There’s 4 or 5 of them using the trees at Lake Riley. You know setting them up and yeah. Ruegemer: Yeah, they’re all stacked up. Hoffman: Not everybody is used to it yet. We had a police call on somebody in a hammock in a park. We’re like no problem. It’s in a park. 2016 SUMMER PROGRAMS. Kelly: Moving right along we’re talking more summer programs with Katie. Favro: Yep so this is a list of all our preschool programs, youth programs and family programs that are offered by the Chanhassen Park and Recreation Department. Some of the highlights I just want to touch about, our dance program is always very popular. Our grandparent and me programs. We do a variety of those. The Penny Carnival is always a huge hit. Our Rec Center Sports are always busy and we’ve got lots of sessions in different sports for everybody to try out. We team up with Skyhawks and then they provide a couple sports that we don’t always necessarily provide from our Rec Center so it’s kind of good to get a variety of different things for kids to try. And then again our Summer Discovery Playground program, that’s always a popular one. We had such a number of people at Roundhouse Park that were interested in the program we added another session out at Roundhouse so that’s a big change this year and exciting. Our teen volunteer program, we’ve got applications coming in. It’s always good to have teens kind of out there helping and working with our playground leaders. And then again Lake Ann Adventure Camp, that is the last kind of 2 seasons we wrap up or 2 weeks that we wrap up with our summer season. That’s always popular. There’s 2 weeks of it and there’s 80 participants per week. They go fishing. Boating. We bring in a rock wall and they make ice cream and do t-shirts. That’s always a very popular one with 160 kids who get to try it. Our rd Minnesota Baseball and Softball camp that we have on the 3 of July and I think those, I just touched on a few of them but if you have any specific questions about any of them let me know and be happy to further, go on further details about them. Kelly: Thank you Katie. It looks like you only have a few things going on this summer. Favro: Just a few. Kelly: So thanks for the great job you’re doing. Favro: Thank you. SELF-SUPPORTING PROGRAMS: 2016 ADULT SOFTBALL. Kelly: Okay Jerry, we’re talking softball. 16 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Ruegemer: Great, thanks again. Monday night we ended up with 8 teams out there so that’s a 28 game double header league out there so playing fields 4 and 5 out at Lake Ann Park. We’ve been kind of dodging rain. We’ve been lucky on Monday nights. It seems like about 4 out of 5 weeks have been a little suspect but we’ve been able to sneak in our games out there, last night included so that’s going good out there. Thursday night we ended up with 12 teams and that is the first year that we’ve done a double header format on Thursday nights too. People were asking lots of questions the last couple years about that so we kind of had to make the cutoff at 12 teams. We’re using all 6 fields. Adult fields out there on Thursday nights and I think people are quite pleased with that so hopefully we’ll continue that momentum here going into the future so. You know just a real quick, players seem to be loving the new backstops and the dugouts last Friday and Saturday with CAA and the Dugout Club’s donation they poured the concrete pads in Fields 4 and 5 and Field 6 will be done at a later time but they look really nice and just another I guess feather in the cap at Lake Ann Park so they look fantastic out there and I think people really appreciate it from adults to the kids. Other than that, that’s it for the softball. Echternacht: Jerry how’s the number of teams that we have this year compare to last year? Ruegemer: Right about in the same number with that so. Echternacht: Okay. Boettcher: Even though this is softball could most of these teams beat the Twins? Or is that an unfair question. I know the Red Birds could. Ruegemer: Very likely. Kelly: Thank you Jerry. Ruegemer: You’re welcome. PROPOSED SPECIAL MEETINGS – ESTABLISH PARK AND TRAIL ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM TOUR AND JOINT CITY COMMISSION TOUR DATES. Kelly: Todd you’re going to talk about establishing park and trail acquisition and development capital improvement program tour and joint city commission tour dates. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly, be glad to. We have 2 evenings identified. One is the off th Tuesday meeting night in June, the 14 and we would tour potential projects for 2017 to be on and once you establish that evening and select a time then we will produce a short packet with a th tour schedule that can be matched to that timeframe and then August 10 that’s already been set. th And oh by the way on June 14 if that does not work as a commission you can select another 17 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 th evening. August 10 that is already selected and that’s the joint commission tour and we’ve enjoyed that for the past half a dozen years or so and will be scheduled again with the Environmental Commission members and Planning Commission and it will be especially helpful this year with all of the comprehensive planning going on to bring everybody up to speed at a joint meeting where we’re all together in one location so I’ll allow the commission to talk about those 2 evenings and then take appropriate action. th Kelly: So I’m looking at my schedule June 14 is open. I don’t know what everybody else has going on. That’s also Flag Day according to my phone. Carron: Is that a 6:00 p.m. start? Hoffman: You could go 6:00 to 9:00 or 6:30 to 9:00. Yep, up to the commission. Carron: That’s fine with me. th Kelly: So I think I’m seeing everybody nodding in agreement on the 14. No disagreements so th Todd let’s go with the 14. Does 6:00 work or is that a little early for some? 6:00? Let’s do it at 6:00 then we’ll be doing it before the bugs come out. Hoffman: Yep and as usual we’ll keep up the pace but we’ll also have a chance to stop and grab a bite to eat with a box lunch and you’ll be seeing some new sites this year. You’ll be seeing some locations that you probably never have seen before and some projects that need some attention so we’ll take a look at those and there’s a good list of things that are both in the hopper and then things that are potentially coming up so you’ll enjoy that evening. Kelly: Good and this year I should make the joint tour. I see them moved it to the, well it’s still the second week of August, or the first full week of August which is usually when I take my vacation but this year we pushed it back so I’ll be in town for it this year. Hoffman: Great. Kelly: And that one is set in stone anyways. Okay. Hoffman: Thank you. Kelly: Thank you. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. Kelly: Steve you want to talk about opening Red Birds day at all? 18 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Scharfenberg: We had a first home game on Sunday against Belle Plain and successfully defeated the Belle Plain Tigers. 13 to 6 I think was the final score and we have 2 home games coming up this weekend. Both against the Edina Buckshots on Saturday night and Sunday night so come on out. Kelly: And we scored 9 runs in one inning. It was really fun. Boettcher: So they were playing the Twins. How many games do they have in the season Steve? Scharfenberg: We had 20, well one I think is being rescheduled. We had 21 home games. Boettcher: 21 home games. Scharfenberg: Yeah so a lot of games in June and July. Kelly: Yeah we have quite a few games. Scharfenberg: Yeah. Kelly: Thank you Steve. Scharfenberg: Yeah. Todd can you just give an update to the commission about what’s going on out at Bandimere? I saw a couple big equipment trucks out there. Hoffman: I’d be glad to. So in advance of the formal contract for the hockey rink and the parking lot expansion, if you recall as a part of the road project Eureka Construction was under contract to the City to do some dirt, both depositing, spreading and they filled a section of wetland there that we needed to either clear out or clear out and then fill back in as a part of the project. We’ve elected to clean it out and leave it as is. That does downsize the parking lot slightly. We lose a few stalls as a part of that so when you drive into Bandimere now you’ll see a newly restored wetland node which was unintentionally filled but it was filled as a part of the Highway 101 project and in advance of that more formal project we decided well let’s get that cleaned out so when the contractor moves in that’s not a part of the contract. We did that with city forces. We trucked all that material to a farm up on top of the hill on Carver who took it for free and that work is now complete. The site has been restored. When the contractor moves in they’ll be taking additional soils out of there and doing some soil corrections and amendments especially in the north side of the hockey rink. And so that hockey site is again too high. It will be coming down. It was a little bit complex at that time in the fact that the State had the front lot. City had the back lot. We were under contract with Eureka so we knew we were going to end up either a little light or a little strong. Eureka brought in a little dirt they didn’t tell us about so we ended up a little more strong than we wanted to but by the time it’s all said and done you’ll have 19 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 a beautiful park expansion. We anticipate all that work will be completed by the end of construction season ready for ice hockey this winter. Other good news today is Magellan Pipeline questioned us on the crossing of the electrical line and so they wanted more information on what size. The bolts. What location. What angle of crossing and we just got word today that we’ll insulate that line. They’ll be an insulated conduit. The line will go through. We have to provide them back with another certificate of insurance and an encroachment agreement but that’s just working with pipelines when they’re on your property. The good news is we don’t have to come all the way from the east off of Kiowa and bring power back across the soccer fields so we received that confirmation today and all of the work, Hoisington-Koegler has been working on the plans up until this time. Now we’re all set. The bid package should go together and we’ll be out to bid on the hockey and the parking lot. And if you recall, I know I mentioned at least some may have not sunk in yet. The hockey, or excuse me the parking lot will be gravel this first year. So we’re going to put it in gravel and then we’ll pave it and put the curb in as a part of the city street project next year and that’s just again because of those new soils. If you remember that site a lot of dirt being moved around. There is some compaction potential in those soils. When it was placed there was, I mean it was compacted in layers but there’s still quite a bit of material went in there so it’s not going to be a big deal. They used it as a dirt parking lot overflow for a couple of years so gravel will be an upgrade from there and then one year later, and you know how time flies, one year later we’ll have asphalt and concrete in there. We’re just not interested in having a sinking piece of asphalt so we’d like to take some precaution so that’s what’s going on at Bandimere. They finished trucking the dirt on Saturday. Kelly: Thank you Todd. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Kelly: Todd anything in the administrative packet you want to point out to us? Hoffman: I would. The cover page, the Chanhassen slope failure on the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority. So there is increased concern among citizens, elected officials and others about this challenge. It’s a $1.8 million dollar problem and FEMA rejected the application for federal funding and so there’s an appeal process going underway through Hennepin County and the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority but if you study FEMA at all it’s a mess with all the flooding insurance nationwide and so things just get denied you know quite frequently now compared to the dollars that they have so I’m not sure if the appeal will be successful or not. If it’s not successful you can bet that the owner of that property is going to be looking to the stakeholders, the people that get benefit from it. I don’t think they’re going to waltz right in and do a $1.8 million dollar worth of work to preserve a corridor. They’re going to say you folks use this as a trail Carver County, City of Chanhassen, Three Rivers Park District. Are you interested in coming to the table with your pocketbooks and going to work with us on this? I’m sure they would dedicate some of their resources but I don’t foresee that they’re going to pony up the million eight. They’ll just leave it closed so people are becoming increasingly concerned. Talk to anybody you know in Hennepin County. Folks are talking to 20 Park and Recreation Commission – May 24, 2016 Klobuchar’s office and Franken’s office and so people are, you know it’s a significant. It’s not just local but it’s a significant regional corridor. The project you saw tonight, what sense does that make long term if this isn’t open. Not a lot of sense so it’s a challenge and we may tour it as a part of our tour because I think you’re going to be hearing more about in the coming months. It was a sleeping giant for 18 months and now it’s awoken. Kelly: Jerry it looks like you’re getting some more kudos on the early picnic evaluation. Ruegemer: That fireplace at Lake Susan has been kind of shut down for probably 5, 6, 7 years. There’s a metal grate in front of it that was beyond repair. I think the chimney was starting to crumble so we had taken it out of I guess use for that so I guess we’ll have to look at I guess another way to potentially maybe have it not look like a fireplace anymore but we’ll take a look at that. Kelly: Right, right. So people don’t want to use it. And I see we got your youth clinic in here too Katie. Looks good, thank you. Any other comments, questions on anything? Or somebody want to put it to the question? Boettcher moved, Carron seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 21