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PC 2007 03 06 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MARCH 6, 2007 Chairman McDonald called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jerry McDonald, Kathleen Thomas, Kurt Papke, Kevin Dillon and Debbie Larson MEMBERS ABSENT: Mark Undestad and Dan Keefe STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; and Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Thor Smith 2139 Boulder Road Phil DeNucci 9186 Springfield Drive Richard Simmons 530 Summerhill Drive Corey Bergman 6791 Redwing Lane Tom Koehnen 795 Ponderosa Drive PUBLIC HEARING: HEARTLAND BUILDING EXPANSION: SITE PLAN APPROVAL FOR A 31,200 SQUARE FOOT OFFICE WAREHOUSE EXPANSION TO AN EXISTING 101,600 SQUARE FOOT BUILDING WITH A VARIANCE FOR PROPERTY ZONED PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT LOCATED AT 7975 CENTURY BOULEVARD (LOT 1, BLOCK 1, ARBORETUM BUSINESS PARK), MARTIN WOODY ARCHITECTS, PLANNING CASE 07-05. Public Present: Name Address Peter Kordonowy 810 Ramsey Avenue Martin Woody 4048 Spruce Road Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. McDonald: Kevin, do you want to start? Dillon: You mentioned there would be a safety concern if windows were put in there. What's the safety concern? Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Generous: Well just, the warehouse space they have, the equipment that they use in there, they can run into that. It's really pushing, storing things up against it and pushing against the window, you could run into. Cracking it. Dillon: And who's the tenant going to be? Generous: It's Heartland. Dillon: And what's the nature of their business? Generous: The applicant would probably be better to talk about that. Dillon: Okay, I'll ask that when they get up. Those are the only questions I had right now. Larson: I didn't have any. Thomas: No, I do not. McDonald: Kurt? Papke: What's the spirit of the transparency? The 50% transparency. Just to remind everybody, why do we require that? Generous: That's to provide a vision to the community, some night time light if you will from buildings out to the street so that people can look in and see activity. In this instance they wouldn't be able to see activity back there really. Papke: Isn't that true of a lot of office industrial type buildings? Generous: Well office space you'll see people working at night and you can see life in it, but in the warehouse space really is not conducive to that. Papke: I'm just struggling a little bit with the rationale behind this one. I certainly understand the safety concerns and I certainly understand the applicant's desire to do it, but I'm not fully grasping what, you know what our rationale is. Aanenson: When we put this PUD together, it falls in line with the highway corridor study that we wanted those buildings that had presence along collector roads, that would be more articulated. As Bob said, sometimes it's the light spilling out of a building, but you can see light in a building so you don't look at an expanses of dark walls. So in this instance the fact that it still has some articulation and has lighting underneath those panels that Bob showed you, that's another way to get, so the building has some life to it. You're not just in a cold space when so you're driving along that road. This does face a road that in some day in the future will be connected to 41. Right now it's not. As Bob Generous indicated, that this building, if it were to become office building could be modified to meet that requirement. Unfortunately, as the building was laid out, it now has frontage on two streets. 2 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Generous: Three streets. Aanenson: Three streets, and that's a little bit more, for an office warehouse, a little bit more onerous to try to meet that requirement, because typically what we say is when your street frontage should be the most articulated. In this circumstance it's three sided. So it's a little bit. Papke: And how big of a variance are we allowing on this? It wasn't clear from the verbiage. Generous: It's varied 10% rather than 50%. Aanenson: On a small segment of that building, yeah. Generous: Yeah, just on the north elevation. Papke: Okay. And if the usage were to change, the building were to change hands, what would be our mechanism at that point in time to revert to the 50% transparency. Generous: As part of the remodeling process, they would have to come in for a building permit. McDonald: I guess I'd like to pick up on that too because I'm having a problem with this. We do not like to grant variances. We like to make sure that if there's a reason for it, we should probably relook at our regulations to begin with. This makes sense from the standpoint of it's a warehouse. I understand that. But if we're going to say it's 50% as far as going to have windows, should we be looking at maybe something that says usage instead of just building by itself because otherwise the other problem I have with this is, they're putting the knock out's in there. It' in there for the windows. You know we're making them go almost to the step of the windows. You know do those knock out's and you should be able to meet it. And yet in their letter, what they're saying is is that, it becomes burdensome to put the windows in, but they're doing the knock out's. I'm having a little bit of a problem. Are we going to create a problem for ourselves with anybody else that comes in, again with warehouse and those things. It does make sense not to have all the windows. I understand that. But should we be looking at something a little bit deeper than this? I mean what, as you said, what was the intent of having the windows and what you've articulated to us is, yeah it's for office space and for you know people being able to see in, but we're applying it very broadly here and now all of a sudden we've taken a warehouse, which why shouldn't they have windows? Generous: And I believe that's part of the reason we have the variance process to look at those unique circumstances. We like to put the onus on them, or developers to meet our standards and then justify why they shouldn't. McDonald: Okay. And again I'll ask the applicant when they come up but I don't see where this is a big burden. So okay. With that I guess I would ask the applicant to come forward and add anything that you wish to add. 3 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Peter Kordonowy: Chairman McDonald, commissioners. Peter Kordonowy with Summerhill Commercial Real Estate. I'm the property manager of the building, the Heartland America building and I represent the owner. Appreciate the opportunity to discuss the building expansion and looking forward to moving forward on this project. This is the architect Martin Woody, and he can speak to the specific façade transparency issue. I think what he'll say is, even if we continue the punch out's on that north elevation, we will still need a variance. We're not going to be able to hit the 50% with the design. The building was designed in 1997 under those design criteria, and we actually can't hit the 50%. Now if we do continue the glass along the north end, we'll still be inadequate but I think from an ownership perspective, I'm not an owner. If they had to do that they would continue the glass on the north end, but it was in the design criteria of the building when it was built in 1997, and actually exceed those criteria by having continuous glass. The building does not have glass on the east side currently. And a good portion of the east side, there's not glass. But we could do as much glass on the north side as you'd like, as is on the east side. But we'd still be inadequate for the requirement. Martin Woody: Just to kind of reiterate what Peter had mentioned was, continuing the existing fenestration along the addition and along the north side. If we kept the same window pattern, even adding all the windows along the north side, we'd still be quite shy of the 50% requirement with the façade. The transparency requirement, which was adopted in 2001 and this building was built in '97 so. And then they do have a problem on the inside with storage up against windows because they utilize racking up against, of the exterior walls since they're loading and unloading the rack and comes in conflict with the windows on that side. We agree that you know should the building even become converted to office on that side, we'd be willing to add the windows at that point. Papke: Just to clarify, the fenestration, 50% transparency was enacted after this building was originally approved and built? Generous: Correct. Papke: So to some extent there's a grandfathering issue here. Also from a continuity and symmetry perspective, as you mentioned, it would certainly from an aesthetic goal, you'd like to continue the same patterning of the windows probably at most rather than all of a sudden coming up with a solid strip of windows there, just to meet this new code requirement. Martin Woody: Sure, there's some economies here as well. The pre-cast panels that are utilized in this construction, they're 8 feet wide so it's easy to punch a 4 foot window in a panel like that. If we say wanted to add a band of windows it would, one it wouldn't you know be consistent with the rest of the façade and it would add cost to the building because we'd have to run beams and what not to make that happen. Peter Kordonowy: Just to touch on that, I think it would create an unusual building because you'd have a strange addition look and then the existing building, and it would have a hybrid design that would not be complimentary to the park. 4 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Martin Woody: There's some, the existing south side of the building, where it is warehouse again existing now, there's reveals that mimic windows on the north side but there's not windows so, we're just trying to create that same appearance on the north side as well. A majority of the building frontages to the east so. McDonald: Anything else Kurt? Okay. Thomas: I think I'm okay, understanding a little bit better about the continuity of the building and trying to stay within the same look and feel of the building so that helps. Larson: Seems pretty straight forward to me. McDonald: Okay. Kevin. Dillon: So what is the business at the north end of the building? Peter Kordonowy: Yes, it's Heartland America. They are a mail order, home goods, or not home goods. Electronics, company. And they have computers, electronics, knick knacks. Globes, if you will. Just things people like to buy across the country. And so they're a mail order company. Heartland America and they're a catalog ordering business. Dillon: Do they take up the entire building? Peter Kordonowy: They're in 90,000 feet of the 100,000 square foot building. And so they would fully occupy this expansion, and so the good news is they're a local employer. Obviously increases the tax base in Chanhassen and being in Chanhassen's been a good thing for them and so this will be, this is an expansion for them. Dillon: I don't have any other questions. McDonald: You're going to have to understand a little bit about where I'm coming from on this because I really, we deal with a lot of variances and I have a real problem granting variances because if you grant them too easily, at that point why have them. It's real easy for people to come up here and say well you granted a variance to so and so. My problem with all of this is, again within your letter we talk about a hardship. I don't see a hardship. I see this based upon more or less usage instead of what the ordinance may have been pointed out to start with but I hear what you say about the grandfathering, the design criteria and those things. And I can buy into that. I'm okay. It's just you know one of the things that I probably want to talk to staff a little bit more about is, I think we need to relook at this. That there needs to be something that talks about usage. Warehouse, I would agree does not need windows, but at the same time I don't want someone else coming in here later on using you guys as an example and saying that we don't need windows either because we're going to store stuff in this particular part of the building. So I am going to go through this in some detail because I do want to create some kind of a record here that there's a reason for all of this. Now one of the things on the knock outs, you had mentioned something about those and that would be a requirement going forward, but what I visualized is that, I mean a knock out's kind of pre-cut into an area and you just kind of knock it 5 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 out and it breaks at that point. That's not what I heard you say. What you're saying is that if we have to put windows in in the future, someone's going to have to go through a big effort it sounds like to put those windows in from the cut out panels. So this isn't just an easy, knock out that you would expect from furniture you buy that's already pre-cut and hit it and a piece falls out. Am I correct in that? Martin Woody: It's a little easier process with masonry construction versus pre-cast. McDonald: Okay. And then you mentioned things about other beams and everything. Yet what happens to the structural integrity of the walls? Is something going to have to be done there to shore those up if someone comes in and does something? Martin Woody: No, not in a pre-cast panel. They're structural panels that are 8 feet wide and the windows in this building, they're 4 feet wide. They fit in the center of the panel, so it's as easy as coming back. The manufacturer comes back with a saw and actually cuts the opening. McDonald: Okay, so if this gets converted then to an office space, this is not an extraordinary cost that's going to really, it's going to be a cost but I mean it's not something that someone can come back to us and claim, yeah because of this it's creating a hardship. This is not something that's extra ordinary as far as having to redo the building. Putting in new supports. I mean you're just putting in windows and the grouting and anything that would go around those. Martin Woody: Right. There'd be no special, or extra structural items needed to put windows in the panels, no. McDonald: And again if I'm understanding, the main reason why you want the variance is because structurally the rest of the building, the way it's built, this architecturally fits into that pattern. Martin Woody: It does. If you look at the building as a whole, actually the building, all the buildings in the development there, they're all real similar construction. Window types. What not. You know each panel has a window in it and structurally that's about what you can do with these panels. Putting in a strip of windows or a ribbon window system, not only would it you know destroy the character of the entire building but it would cost quite a bit more to make that happen. McDonald: Well from that point, the building wouldn't match the existing building. Martin Woody: Right. McDonald: Then the other thing, this entire building will be used for storage and for warehouse usage, is that correct? Martin Woody: Correct. 6 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 McDonald: That is the primary purpose in doing this, so that the company that's moving in there can store things that they're selling. They need the extra space for that. Martin Woody: It's storage and distribution. McDonald: Okay. I guess other than that, I mean that's the only questions I've got about this really was dealing with this variance that we're looking at granting here tonight. I just want to make sure that we do it for the right reasons. Martin Woody: Yeah, I guess we wouldn't be asking for a variance if we didn't really need it. McDonald: Well I understand that. Even, or one of the things you said was, even if it meant that you'd still have to get a variance on the north side. Could you explain what you meant by that, because even at that you wouldn't be able to meet the 50%. Martin Woody: Right. We wouldn't be able to meet the intent of the ordinance the way it's written if we put windows in every panel along the north side. McDonald: Okay. Martin Woody: Along the north side and the addition side. We'd still be short. I think we'd only make it up to 30%. McDonald: Okay. I have no further questions, unless someone else wants to come back with something. Then I guess at this point I would open it up to the public and thank you all very much. Martin Woody: Thank you. McDonald: If anyone wishes to come forward and speak on this matter, please do so now. Well, seeing no one come forward, I will close the public meeting and I'll bring it back up for the council for deliberation and Kevin, do you want to start? Dillon: Yeah. You know I'm inclined to vote to grant the variance. I think that kind of given you know, it's either this or there's some other variance that we may be granting, or we wouldn't do anything at all and that would be harmful to the business and therefore present a hardship. I think that it makes sense. You know it's the right thing to do for this property. So your point Jerry about you know every we kind of straight down I'll say slippery slope of granting too many variances. I don't think we do that. I mean I think you know when these requests come before us, I mean there's always questions and challenge and properly considered and every one's a unique circumstance and by granting this one, I don't, it's not, and I don't want to mischaracterize what you said but I don't think we opened the flood gates to more or anything like that. There's going to be unique situations all the time. We just have to deal with those as they come. McDonald: Okay, fair enough. 7 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Larson: I'll agree with what Kevin just said regarding that. I won't repeat it. But also to the fact that it was grandfathered in in '97 and you know the fact that the city changed their views on it you know just a few years later, I'm all for keeping the style the same. You don't want to mess with the integrity of the structure you know and I think it's a nice design. It's an industrial design. Why mess with it. I mean if it's not really hurting anybody, I am inclined to go ahead and vote for the variance. Thomas: I'm going to also agree with the other two. I do agree that staff did a good job of bringing together the proposal and working with the applicant as to how the building will need to look and with it being that the ordinance was the way it was in '97, and now asking for additional, everyone's saying the same thing. We would have had to grant a variance no matter what so, I'm inclined to vote the same as well. Papke: I'm wondering if there isn't an opportunity here for a compromise, given that the street on the north side is eventually going to run out to 41. It's going to be reasonably high traffic. They're already putting in the knock out's for the windows. I guess one idea I'd float for discussion here is, if we had them put in the windows on the north side and they hit the 30%, that to me doesn't sound quite as ugly as 10%. And I don't think it would be over burdensome and again, I think it would give the building a uniform look to it. I think just to have no windows in the addition is going to make it look a bit odd, and to put in a strip window to meet the code is going to make it look odd. So I'm wondering if meeting the applicant halfway doesn't have some merit. Any thoughts? Larson: Is there any way that we could do it, have it be a condition as to the point where that road does open up, then it would have to be changed, or something like that. Papke: But then would you have them just, are you talking about putting in the windows or putting, or meeting code when the street goes through? Larson: Meeting code. Well no. Papke: But then they'd have to change the whole north side. They're not going to be able to meet it you know without ripping up the whole. Larson: …changing the windows at that point, but why do it now, you know what I mean? If it's not an issue at this point but at some point where it becomes an issue. Dillon: It's an aesthetic issue. Papke: It's an aesthetic issue now, and in the future, they're proposing putting in only a 10% transparency on the north side right now which means punch out's but no windows. Why not put in the windows, why not stipulate the windows now so at least it's uniform on the north side? Larson: It's an industrial building. Papke: It already is. 8 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Larson: I know but. McDonald: That's my point about the variance to begin with. Maybe the variance, maybe the regulation is wrong. Maybe it shouldn't be 50%. That's the whole point of looking at this is that, if we're going to have warehouses and industrial buildings come into town, we can't look at each one and be granting variances. We need to decide what it should be. What is appropriate for the use. We should not put burdens upon people that they cannot meet, and that's my point in all of this was to bring that up is that, 50% does sound like a rather high number and again, if it's based upon usage of the building, that should be factored into it. And it's not in this case. Papke: As you stated when we opened, we're not, we can't change the rules here tonight. McDonald: Right, and I'm not proposing that we do. What I again stated was that's probably something we need to go back and ask staff to look at. Aanenson: Mr. Chair if I could just add something too. We did include for you findings of fact of why we supported the variance and I just, while they're embedded in there, I want to make sure it's clear what our rationale was on that. The fenestration requirement is any street frontage, so because this is a 3 sided lot, and it's, the use of the building is predominantly warehouse storage, it's an anomaly in that respect. It should eliminate it from that requirement but the requirement did change. That would be one, some of the rationale. And the other one is, keeping in mind that this is a 25% expansion of a building that doesn't meet code, so while we're talking about 50%, it's 50% of that 25% expansion. So we were looking at that incremental change. Because our non-conforming says that if it's over 50%, then if you look at just a non- conforming building, because this was a smaller percentage, I just want to keep that in perspective. It's not a brand new building where we, you know it's following a prevailing pattern that they've already set in place, so it's trying to find that, what's the best way to get to the desired goal, and that's where we struggled and did recommend what we did in the staff report. McDonald: Well then part of what you're saying there is, that gets back to the grandfathering clause that what was there as existing must have met code at the time it was put up. Generous: Yes. Aanenson: Yes, so they don't have the 50% currently on the existing street, so when you're going beyond that on that extra 25%, so that's when we went back and said, is that onerous? Does that seem rationale? What's the nexus for that and that's where we struggled and kind of said, if we can provide that in the future the changes, but the way it's set up with that high of a building, it's set up to be office, excuse me, storage, warehousing with shelving and, could it be converted in the future? Sure, as any building in the city could. But that would probably involve a lot more structural stuff which I think Chairman McDonald, went back to your question. How much detail would be involved or how much work would be involved in changing that use. McDonald: Yeah, I guess with all of that, as Kurt has said, you know we're not here to change rules. I think what we're…this particular applicant because of the other things, it's just the way 9 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 that it initially comes through. Any time you're going to grant 40% variance, I think we need to look at why are we doing that much. Papke: The only thing I'm kind of stuck on here is, if we're going to grant this, and why would we not at least have the applicant put in the same number of windows in you know, the same ratio of windows in the addition that they have in the base building? If we're going to grant a variance, why would we allow the applicant to go backwards in the fenestration ratio. You know it should at least maintain parity with what they already have. That's kind of what I'm getting stuck on. You know if we're going to grant the variance, why should we go backwards? That's one thing we try not to do with all of our variances. Larson: Is it all on the same side? I mean maybe I read this wrong. But isn't there a side of the building currently that doesn't have windows, or no? Generous: Yeah, the south elevation doesn't have windows either. Martin Woody: And the east elevation doesn't have windows as well. Papke: What we're kind of stuck on is, what I'm kind of stuck on is the north side. Larson: Why not extend it conforming with what they've already done? Papke: That's what I'm proposing, right. Are you, does the north side have windows all the way along or does the north side just have the punch out's? Right, and what the proposed addition has how many? Martin Woody: Well the east side. Papke: On the north side. Martin Woody: On the east side there's, part of it is windows and part of it is just reveal. So a lot of it on the east doesn't have windows as well. On the south side, most of it is reveals. Doesn't have windows. So there isn't a string of windows along the whole entire front of the building. Papke: What about the north side? Martin Woody: The north side there's 6 windows existing on the north side. Papke: Maybe I'm, do I have my bearings backwards or are you pointing at the west side? Martin Woody: This is north. Generous: So that's how this is sitting. Martin Woody: North is this way. Along this east wall it's not a continuous band of windows. 10 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Larson: So am I understanding it correctly or no? What you're adding, where you're adding, you're not putting new windows on the north edge, correct? Martin Woody: Correct. Larson: And then what about that little clip box corner? What's that? Martin Woody: There's 2 windows and an entrance on that. You can look here, it's an oblique angle here. There's 2 windows on each side of the entry. This is the, facing north and east. And this is the entire east elevation from here on. And this is the north. So this is, we're using this entire area as warehouse. Larson: Okay. Martin Woody: And on the south side of the building, it mimics this. There's just reveals here where there's no, the entrances are there. The entrance façade detail is there but there aren't any windows along there. Larson: So really the only windows are on the east side? Martin Woody: Right, and this is where the, this is the office area contains about this much, so this is actually open warehouse with the windows on the east side so. Larson: Okay. And does it pose a problem currently? Martin Woody: I think there is, that's a different function…part of the warehouse. Peter Kordonowy: The south side of the building actually has some windows come down part way about a quarter. Currently Heartland America does not have any windows in their warehouse and they have about 75,000 square feet of warehouse. So the east side, the long side of the building where the warehouse starts, doesn't have any windows. Martin Woody: Along the east side. Peter Kordonowy: On the east side, the current site. But currently Heartland does not have any windows in their warehouse area. Martin Woody: So it's not continuous with windows all the way along the east face of the building. There's reveals where windows could be. Peter Kordonowy: It stops right where the office, their office is about like this and so this entire length is non-windows until you get actually about the middle 50% is revealed edge on the existing building. Larson: Okay. 11 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Dillon: So anyways Kurt, to your comment about should we try to ask for a compromise, I think it's probably worth asking, but then the safety concern with the glass in the warehouse and all that stuff so, it's something that maybe we should pose to the developer just to get their reaction. McDonald: If you wouldn't mind getting coming back up there and addressing that. Peter Kordonowy: Sure. Well I do know that Heartland, we want to work with the City of Chanhassen and maintain the integrity of the look of the building and they don't have any glass in their current warehouse. Would they prefer to maintain that? They probably would strongly prefer it. Like to reach some kind of an equitable compromise. Still have the building look nice and uniform. It would add windows to their warehouse. They currently do not have that. If it's necessary they'd have to live with it. They probably would end up blocking it or something like that or screening it or plywood or something, but it could be done. Larson: Which means there's still no light coming out of those windows. Papke: You're not accomplishing the goal if you block the windows. Okay. McDonald: Okay, any other comment? Then at this point I would open it up for a recommendation. Papke: Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve Planning Case 07-05 for a 31,200 square foot office warehouse expansion to an existing 101,600 square foot building with a variance to permit only 10% building transparency on the northern building elevation. Plans prepared by Martin Woody Architects dated February 2, 2007, subject to conditions 1 through 25 as stated in the staff report. McDonald: Can I have a second? Larson: I'll second. Papke moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve Planning Case 07-05 for a 31,200 square-foot office warehouse expansion to an existing 101,600 square-foot building with a variance to permit only 10 percent building transparency on the northern building elevation, plans prepared by Martin Woody Architects, dated February 2, 2007, subject to the following conditions: 1.The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the City and provide the necessary security to guarantee erosion control, site restoration and landscaping. 2.The developer shall incorporate a gathering space in the northeast corner of the site including benches and or tables overlooking the natural areas to the east. 3.If the interior of the north end of the building is converted to offices, windows shall be installed along that area of the building. 12 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 4.The developer shall extend a sidewalk from the building to the sidewalk on Water Tower Place and include pedestrian ramps at all curbs. 5.The applicant shall have a minimum of 9 canopy trees, 23 understory trees and 23 shrubs along Water Tower Place. 6.The applicant shall replace the evergreens located in the northwest parking lot peninsula with overstory, deciduous trees. 7.A revised landscape plan shall be submitted before building permit issuance which specifies size, quantity and species of proposed plantings. 8.The building addition is required to have an automatic fire extinguishing system. 9.All plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of Minnesota. 10.Inlet protection shall be installed around all catch basins after installation and maintained until final stabilization occurs. 11.The plans shall be revised to address issues that could arise as the result of run-on in the northwest corner of the site. 12.Silt fences shall be installed with J-hooks to prevent runoff from running around the end of the silt fences. 13.Until building construction begins, the rock construction entrance shall be 75 feet in length in accordance with the City’s standard detail. 14.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to the following table of slopes and time frames: Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area 10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.) Flatter than 10:1 21 days These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man made systems that discharge to a surface water. 15.Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as needed. 13 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 16.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Site Permit)) and comply with their conditions of approval. 17.Provide drainage area maps and calculations to ensure that they are the same as what was previously accepted. 18.Provide rational method calculations for the storm sewer. 19.Ground (i.e. non-paved) surface grades shall not be less than 2%. Paved grades shall not be less than 1%. Grades along curb line must not be less than .5%. 20.Emergency overflow locations and elevations must be shown on the plan. 21.An easement is required from the appropriate property owner for any off-site grading. 22.If importing or exporting material for development of the site is necessary, the applicant will be required to supply the City with detailed haul routes. 23.Areas disturbed areas in City right of way must be sodded. 24.Show heavy duty and light duty pavement sections on the plans. nd 25.Access for tractor trailers shall be limited to 82 Street.” All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: CHANHASSEN HIGH SCHOOL: REZONING FROM AGRICULTURAL ESTATE DISTRICT, A2 AND PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT, PUD TO OFFICE AND INSTITUTIONAL DISTRICT, OI; SITE PLAN APPROVAL WITH VARIANCES FOR A HIGH SCHOOL CAMPUS INCLUDING AN APPROXIMATELY 406,000 SQUARE FOOT, THREE STORY BUILDING, ATHLETIC FIELDS, CONCESSION BUILDING, STADIUM, STORAGE/MAINTENANCE BUILDINGS AND PARKING LOTS; CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT WITH VARIANCES FOR DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE BLUFF CREEK OVERLAY DISTRICT; AND WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT FOR THE GRADING AND FILLING OF WETLANDS ON SITE. THE PROPERTY IS LOCATED NORTH OF LYMAN BOULEVARD, SOUTH OF THE TWIN CITIES AND WESTERN RAILROAD, AND WEST OF BLUFF CREEK. APPLICANT, ANDERSON-JOHNSON ASSOCIATES, INC., AND INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT 112, PLANNING CASE 07-06. 14 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Public Present: Name Address Mark Bosch 1709 Windsor Drive South, Shakopee st Steve Miller 244 1 Avenue No., Minneapolis Todd Iverson 14329 Rutgers Street, Prior Lake Jonathan Duesman 3349 Irving Avenue So., Minneapolis Jay Pomeroy 7575 Golden Valley Road, Minneapolis Paul Schlueter 11 Peavey Road, Chaska Steve Pumper 11 Peavey Road, Chaska Thor Smith 2139 Boulder Road Jeff Moody 1800 Sunridge Court Dennis Chadderdon 8900 Audubon Road Barbara & Andy Kayati 8715 Valley View Place Al Gomez 8748 Valley View Place Joel Lehrke 2329 Boulder Road Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Aanenson: Mr. Chair, if I could just add a couple things. There's a lot to cover on this. On page 19, the Assistant City Engineer did point out the number of retaining walls, and I think it might be helpful just to talk about those for a minute. The second thing is, I did want to point out that an environmental assessment was done on this site for the grading permit, and all the plans that you see before you today are consistent with the recommendations of that Environmental Assessment, and then just a reminder that there was a neighborhood meeting that the school district put together on January, and we had staff represented from the city too. That was on th January 18 so we included the comments that were, that came from that meeting too. Just wanted you to be aware of that, but if it's alright I would like Alyson Fauske to maybe just take a minute to talk about the, there is a significant amount of retaining walls. Just take a minute to talk about that. Fauske: Thanks Kate. Planning Commissioners, when we looked at this site and we looked at the number of retaining walls, we kind of took a step back to take a look at it, if there was a way to reduce or eliminate some of these retaining walls and the site is very challenging from a grading standpoint. One, just looking at the existing grades that fall throughout the site, from Lyman Boulevard down to the creek, with some high points inbetween. And second of all is, the 100 foot swath where the gas line easement lies, and the school district has been working with the gas company to get permission for some grading within that easement, but they are limited to the amount of fill that they can place over that pipe, so on the eastern side of that easement you will see some proposed grading. On the west side I believe it would be a cut situation, which they would not be able to accomplish, so that drives a lot of the retaining walls on the site and the topography, Bluff Creek, the electric substation, wetlands have all contributed to the height and number of retaining walls there. McDonald: Does anyone have any questions concerning retaining walls? 15 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Papke: What type of retaining walls are we talking about here? Obviously not boulders. Fauske: They would certainly be engineered retaining walls because they are over 5 feet and perhaps the applicant could answer the question as far as materials. Papke: It'd be nice to know if they're the smaller, are they the monster blocks that we see in some developments now, or smaller blocks or what are we talking about here? Fauske: Again I think the applicant has a plan together for that. McDonald: If I could just follow up on that because we went through this, didn't we about retaining walls and didn't we come down some types and material and everything? Aanenson: Correct, and that is in the city code and they will be required to follow that, and it's really just the tying back of the wall itself. The integrity of that. McDonald: I know we looked at a lot of things with fencing on the top and safety issues. Aanenson: And that's included too. On some of these areas where they're around ballfields and active areas and the school district's incorporated, the fencing requirement on top of those walls too. Fauske: I believe, sorry Kate, I believe all walls are proposed to have a fence at the top. Larson: I was going to say, some of these are quite high. So high would a fence be? Fauske: They're proposing a 4 foot high chain link fence. Larson: 4 feet over a 28 foot drop? Or 29 foot drop. Fauske: To provide the separation from the top of the wall and any. Larson: And is there any, from where the fence would be, would it be directly above it or would there be some space behind it. Fauske: I don't recall the detail plate at the top of my head. I believe the applicant could probably give you a good indication. Larson: I would hate for that to be an issue… Fauske: Certainly. Papke: So with the gas pipeline and the retaining walls, what does the topography end up looking like? Is this, does the gas pipeline end up looking like a hump? A hole? What do we have as a result of this? I'm a little concerned with some of the practicality of people walking 16 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 through there getting to the ballfield and the aesthetics and you know, it's kind of an odd siting here with a pipeline going right through the middle of a school site. Fauske: It certainly is. I apologize for having to bring out the grading plan…off the top of my head. If we look at, and I apologize I don't have this really in a presentable form but, if we look at the grades, this is Lyman Boulevard right here, and we have the railroad tracks here. And this swath here is where the easement lies. We go from an elevation of about 945 here at the roadway. Come up to 55, a 60. We go up to about 70 actually is the highest, so we have about a 25 foot rise in elevation. And then we start going down of course to the creek, and that drop is proposed at, let's see here. Boy, an 80 foot fall. So it's a significant rise and fall throughout that. Papke: So does the pipeline, on the western side where you have the retaining walls, is it sunken? Is it elevated? What does it? Fauske: The pipeline, as far as I understand, is about 4 to 6 feet deep if I'm correct on that. The pipeline does follow the existing terrain, so the issue on the section closer to Lyman is that they would be in a cut situation where they're doing a steady rise and they would want to cut down that elevation but they cannot cut over that pipeline. Papke: So the pipeline is going to look like a hump, looking at it from Lyman. Fauske: Oh I understand the question. Okay. Papke: There's retaining walls on both sides of the pipeline. Are they going to be holding up dirt over the pipeline or are they going to, are we going to be looking at a tunnel? Fauske: Okay. If you want to look at it for example here along Lyman. We're looking at the retaining wall, this location is high, and then low down to the softball fields. Aanenson: Can you just like maybe read the elevations or point it onto the green? Larson: It's a hump or a slope? I think it's a slope. That's how I read into it anyway. Yeah, we need the colored one. Fauske: Okay, and I'd also ask that the school district engineer can also jump in here at any time. Jay Pomeroy: The pipeline does, it comes up and then it goes down. We are trying as much as possible to not draw attention to the pipeline. We don't want it to look like an alley or an aircraft landing. Papke: And do you also have issues, I mean as the students go out to hit the ballfields and so on, you know it's typically a stampede. Is this going to limit access where they're going to have to take the walkways or what, how's that going to work? Jay Pomeroy: Somewhat. Yeah the, the west end between the softball fields and soccer fields, this is direct access. You will come up a little bit and down. Where the walls are in this 17 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 corridor, or this portion of the corridor, the gas main is higher than the softball field, then the soccer field. So there is this elevation above the play fields, and it all ties back together though at the entrance to the stadium. The building is at about a 950. It slopes up to the spectator entrance and the plaza. It comes directly across, right over that pipeline. Everything's wide open and then we're transitioning down because it is an 80 foot drop, but it's the pipeline and the field, the entire site drops off there. The facility drops as the gas main drops. Now in this portion of the gas main we've actually filled over the main in order to transition, artificially anyway, some of that slope. So we can minimize retaining walls along the corner of the parking lot and off the corners and then the tennis courts, so that those match in a little bit better. So that there is another connection, not only paved but just wide open grass. Keep in mind though it is dropping… Larson: Is it paved directly on it or is it like a bridge sort of thing? Jay Pomeroy: No, it's directly on it. Larson: It is? Okay. So like from the tennis courts, you see where the scoop is for the stadium? I mean can you see down to that or is it? Jay Pomeroy: The stadium, actually the tennis courts, I'm sorry. This walk is about 15 feet higher. I'm guessing but it's going to be, this walk is higher than the tennis courts. Larson: Oh it is? Here I'm thinking the other way around. Jay Pomeroy: And then the track is down again. So as you walk, the track is depressed. Not sad but just down. And as you walk around, as you walk around the end of the track, you're coming down into that bowl, but our elevation here is still higher. Larson: Okay. Jay Pomeroy: This is going to be one of those sites that the landscape architecture is always asking for interest no matter where you're at. Larson: Bob, you should have used a different color where it slopes. Darker green maybe. McDonald: We're looking at different terrace levels and everything. Aanenson: Correct. McDonald: This isn't just a straight site. This is going to be all over the place. Brought up by the walls and buildings. Larson: And there's only 8 tennis courts? Jay Pomeroy: Don't ask for more. 18 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 McDonald: Anything else Alyson? Fauske: No, not unless the Planning Commission has any other questions. McDonald: Any questions of Alyson concerning any more of the retaining walls? Papke: Not on the walls. On the traffic flow, you know having a dedicated bus entrance here is a little different and we're going to great lengths to accommodate that. Were there any other design alternatives looked at? I assume there were and we, I'm sure we settled on this for a good reason but obviously there's a lot of effort that's going to have to go through to make that dedicated bus entrance. Fauske: Certainly, to answer your question regarding access points. When we first started meeting with the school district and the school district came to us with the 3 access points and we started having discussions, does the traffic warrant 3 access points, and in short the answer is yes. The school district got a traffic study for the site to show the trip generation and the school district has always desired to have this separate bus access. It's aligned with Audubon Road so it's a positive place for an intersection in that it connects with an existing roadway here to the south of Lyman. So that was always something they wanted to accomplish, was to separate that bus traffic from the passenger traffic. And again they looked at, there are other access points here along Lyman Boulevard. With this middle access aligning with Hazeltine Drive, for the parent drop off, which comes up into this area here, and for this to be the main entrance and we looked really hard at where does it make the most sense to have this access point so, to answer your question, we certainly looked at the number and location of these access points. Aanenson: Let me just add one thing, they also looked at directional traffic as one of the issues that we had too was where the trips were coming from and where is the best place for the bus. And the signalized intersection. McDonald: Can I ask a question? When you say parent drop off, what do you mean by that? I mean I understand the buses. What's a parent? Fauske: Where the parents drop their kids off at school. McDonald: So is the plan for them to come in and do a circular route so that they go back out the entrance coming in to keep you know all of that kind of traffic to one side so it's students coming in? Jay Pomeroy: Yeah, with buses and parents and students and visitors who may not know quite where they're going, the intention is always to try and separate the bigger cars, or I'm sorry, the bigger trucks and buses from the smaller, and so by separating the bus traffic and having them use the Audubon intersection, and keeping those buses separate, they don't have to worry about mom or dad cutting them off at any particular part of the morning or the afternoon. The parents again will have a pre-designated drop off area for their children. Not to drop the parents off, but the children off, and they will have to commingle with the students or the faculty and we'll leave that to the school to determine what's the best location for the students to park is, but again, they 19 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 will be separated. Visitor parking will be in this same drop off area, along with the parents so that they don't have to mingle too, too much with crazy students or the service vehicles… Dillon: Is there going to be a traffic light with the bus on Audubon? Aanenson: Yes. Generous: There's one already but it will be modified. I believe at Hazeltine we need another signal. Fauske: I'm just looking for it in the report. Aanenson: It's on page 14. Generous: And page 14 shows the improvements. McDonald: We're just kind of jumping around here so. I've got a question off my head. We're looking at a variance on the wetlands because of the fact that they do, they go into the primary zone. What's the trade off there? What are we getting in return to help maintain the Bluff Creek area? Generous: The school district has granted MnDot an easement for a restoration project within that. We also anticipate that the school, as part of their curriculum will do some enhancements and environmental studies out there. There's an opportunity for revegetation to take place through the school. They are providing some as part of this project, but as Jill said, we should leave something for the students to do in the future also. McDonald: Okay. So there will be an ability to utilize the area even better than what it currently is? Generous: Yes. McDonald: For the trade off for all this. Aanenson: Yeah, and just creating a higher and better quality wetland. McDonald: Does anyone else have any questions of either staff or, well we haven't heard from. Papke: One for staff here. Besides the gas pipeline we have a railroad tracks to the north and a rather substantial substation to the south. And one of the things, I didn't see a lot of examination of any safety issues. I mean parking students right inbetween a substation. Right over a gas pipeline. Right next door to a railroad track. Seems like a very safety challenged environment. Can you speak to what sort of measures were put into place to make sure that we don't have any issues with that. 20 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Fauske: When we look at the overall site plan, the location of the railroad, we'll work from the south here. We have the railroad here. The elevation of the railroad is much higher than this, than the softball field here and the baseball field. They show retaining walls all through here. So that's, there's one physical barrier right there. And I believe at this location is the only area where there's no retaining wall separating the athletic fields from the, and the railroad so, we can have conversations with the school district to see if they have a safety issue associated with that but as I mentioned, there is a physical barrier along the majority of that corridor. Papke: Do we know what the train schedule is like? Is it unlikely to be operating during school hours or what's the. Aanenson: It does run 4 times a day. It will be running 4 times a day, so it may be during school hours. Larson: Is it practice fields along there or are those real, I can't see from the. Jay Pomeroy: Real. They're real. Larson: Okay. Papke: So is there any potential issues with traffic you know, school commencing or leaving out at times when there's a train running on those tracks? Aanenson: Given the fact that it runs through the core of downtown, I mean there are times that it's passed, a short inconvenience. We did look at that with the driveway locations. That was discussed in the EA too, the stacking. The separation there that we didn't have kids stacked on tracks for that driveway entrance. That was taken into consideration. So we don't have that situation. Fauske: The second question that you have is with regards to the gas line, which lies along here. Again there is a physical barrier between the parking area and the pipeline. The mezzanine meets grade here but just along the north side of the parking lot there is a retaining wall there. These gas lines lie in people's back yards. They have a 100 foot easement. From my understanding the pipeline is centered within the easement so there is an additional 50 feet from the edge of that parking area to where that gas line lies. Your third concern was with regards to the electrical substation. It's pretty much, it's completely surrounded by access drive aisles. There's no activity that would draw any of the children to that area. And again it's also got retaining walls pretty much all along this side of the drive to here, and then again along this locations. Papke: It's a big high fence around the substation? Generous: Yes, around the substation. McDonald: Okay. Would the applicant care to come up and add anything or make us aware of anything? 21 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Steve Pumper: Yes, great. Chairman McDonald, commissioners, good evening. I'm Steve Pumper, Director of Finance and Operations for District 112. I'm happy to bring this plan forward finally for the City of Chanhassen. I'll be real brief and then I'll introduce Jay Pomeroy, who's already been up here but at least get his name out here, who is our civil engineer and he'll, he can talk more about the site plan itself. Answer some of the questions you have regarding retaining walls and what they'll be made of and how they might look and any other questions you would have on the site plan. And then Steve Miller, who is our principle architect from Rozeboom Miller is here as well and he can answer questions regarding the design of the building. The components, what it will be made of, and have some information here to show you regarding the look of such. After that's over, perhaps I'll address some of the conditions that staff are proposing as part of the site plan approval. One thing before I step down though, just to reinforce what Alyson was saying regarding the railroad. In addition to the natural conditions, the road will be much higher than the fields. There's also a fence along that whole corridor as well so it's kind of two buffers to try to keep both students and/or spectators as opposed to going to and the opposite is true as well. To try to keep students from accessing our site or neighborhood on the other side of the railroad to try to get into the school site, so again we have kind of two buffers there in place to help with the road condition. But with that I'll bring up Jay Anderson, or Jay Pomeroy, sorry, from Anderson-Johnson Associates and he can talk to you about the site plan. McDonald: Thank you. Jay Pomeroy: Thank you Chair and commissioners. We were back here in November, December I think with our earlier bid package and so I appreciate coming back again. I won't go into the site too, too much. Bob did a wonderful presentation and he colored it so everything looks very apparent, but I'll just run through it very quick and so again, you can go to the site plan. The two entrances off of Audubon and Lake Hazeltine, again we've gone through what the use of those are. The parking lots to the west of the building provide about 500 stalls and then the parking lots to the north are another 400. 400 and some odd stalls. The bus corral, when it's not being used, will also be striped for event parking or for open houses. That provides another 140ish stalls as well so there's about 1,000 parking stalls included with the plan. The parking stalls that parks has asked for would be an alternate along the south side of the building and if I recall that was another 45. Generous: 48. Jay Pomeroy: 48 stalls. And really it just gets down to budget. It's at the south end of the building. It would be perhaps used more for faculty and shop classes at that end of the building and it's proximity to the athletic fields really is fairly distant at that point so we felt it was an appropriate alternate. As we walk around the site to the west we have two soccer fields or practice fields. Just to the north of the pipeline we'll have our softball field, baseball field, and we talked a little bit about the depressed poor thing stadium with it's plaza up top and concession and ticket tooth. The home grandstand. This will be very similar in count to Chaska High School. I should probably put that out there but the seating counts for the home side is about 1,600 seats and that will actually be pushed right into the slope of the hill as it comes down so, 22 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 there's actually informal seating provided on the grass on each side of the home side bleachers. And as you go down that pathway to the visitor's side there's about 800 seats on that side. Again very similar to what Chaska High School has. As you go down that sidewalk it's either discus throw areas, the shot put throw and then just to the north of that, the long triple jump, pole vault area. The storage building is actually considered future, if there's budget for it there'll be a building down there but right now it's considered future. And then practice fields and softball fields at the very north end of the site, and again all this kind of transitions down in elevation. By the time you get down to the northern soccer and softball fields, we're about down to the Bluff Creek elevation. The only thing I didn't touch on was the 8 tennis courts. It's a great number. And then as Bob has colored in blue, there are 3 storm ponds basically. Just to the west of the parking lot, just to the southwest of the parking and then a third one between the building and Bluff Creek. Bob's also colored in nicely wetland mitigation area, existing wetlands. What he didn't do, and I'll criticize him for that, is that this is actually a wetland corridor in here. There's a blue line, right. It's a lot bigger than that, at least in mitigation terms or delineation terms but that, we are trying to maintain that. …but it's certainly a neat swaled area that we're trying not to intercept that and use that for biology class. That will pass under the bus entrance and continue to feed Bluff Creek. The character of the site, once we're done, we're trying to keep it in context with Bluff Creek, meaning prairie grasses and native seed mixes, native trees. So over the gas main, around the fields, pretty much encompassing the border of the site would be those native grasses. In one case certainly it's less maintenance for the schools, but it's also just kind of keeping in tune with the natural surroundings, and we feel certainly the curriculum will benefit from that as well. Maybe if I can, before I bring Steve up, the architect I'll answer a couple of the questions that I heard come up. The fence heights and the setbacks off the walls. They're going to vary. Certainly the minimum height is going to be 4 feet, but where especially we have some higher volumes next to the discus and shot put area where there's a fairly high wall, that will be an 8 foot high wall. Certainly we're also going to soften that, what we've done since this design is actually have a two tiered wall where the wall will basically be in the same location but you'll drop down about 3 feet so that we can have about a 10 foot wide planting area before you drop down the balance of the 20 feet. So as you're on the discus, as you're on the discus throw area, you can see trees growing in the planter and not just a drop and then you'll see trees. Along the bus entrance there'll be actually guardrail and it won't be the MnDot type of guardrail but more of the heavy post and beam type of a guardrail, with the fence as well. So not only from safety but just from traffic and I'm concerned obviously about icing conditions and traffic accidents, if they ever did occur against that. That fairly substantial wall. The wall types are as well, there's going to be 2 styles and I'll use Keystone as an example. That's a name brand but it may be anchor or round or whatever, but the smaller modular block will be used on the smaller height walls. Where we require some more substantial, and more substantial looking wall systems, especially along the bus entrance drive, those will be the bigger block, kind of like what you see at Home Depot, right. Traffic flow we talked about. Steve mentioned the fencing at the railroad, and there is a fairly substantial tree area between the railroad tracks and our property line. This is 100 scale so there's about 80 feet of width all the way up to this point and then there's probably 30 feet of at least vegetation between our property line, which would be fenced, and those railroad tracks. The gas main, just so you know, we did go out and what's called pot hole it. We did go out with a backhoe and determine that it is all about 3 feet deep. It does run exactly down the center of that easement so it's right down that corridor and there's 50 feet on either side of it before we can do anything to the grade or have any sort of an 23 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 encumbrance so unfortunately we can't plant trees in it. We can't cross it other than really in a perpendicular direction with our paving. So we're again trying to treat that as sensitively as we can with again the prairie grasses, but also trying to undulate walls where we can or affect grades so that it doesn't look like a corridor. I think those are the questions that you had. I can certainly come back up if you have more, and I'm sure you will, but Steve Miller can talk a little bit about the architecture and some. McDonald: If you don't mind before you go, I've got a question about the gas pipeline. I see the two access points across there but will people be able to cross at other points or are we at a point where the terracing is that, that's just not going to be possible. Jay Pomeroy: No, the two paved paths that we've provided certainly…those are where we hope they path. But this path for instance, and it actually connects down to the track. This will be where the football or soccer players at halftime, they will actually travel that path into the gymnasium at halftime for instance. That is a hard surfaced path for them to travel, and for that matter the community as they come up and tunnel under the railroad tracks as they come up, they'll be able to follow that same hard surface trail. So that's ADA accessible. 5% slopes. Everything is passable. Larson: Okay, back up. Tunnel? Is it like a path? McDonald: There's an existing tunnel. Jay Pomeroy: Yeah, there's an existing trail from the neighborhood to the north of the railroad tracks, and we're going to continue that trail. Larson: Oh, okay. Jay Pomeroy: Actually why don't I talk a little bit about that. It goes from the northeast portion, actually outside of our property limits but it will come through Bluff Creek. Up through our site. Past the tennis courts and then right all the way along the school, all the way down to the Audubon Road. Larson: Is that what this is? Generous: That's the existing. The City has a trail within Bluff Creek also. Larson: Why is there a car?... Jay Pomeroy: Yep. Does that answer your question? Alright. Steve Miller: Thanks Jay. Good evening Mr. Chair and commission members. I'm Steve Miller with Rozeboom Miller Architects. We've been working with the district for about a year now on the planning of the internal components of the building as well as the site planning. I know that you are probably more interested in some of the site planning aspects, but I'm going to go over the exterior of the building. How it complies with your planning ordinances, but also I can 24 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 answer questions and tell you a little bit about the inside of the school as well, because I have a feeling you might be interested in that. First off I just want to put it in context. The size of the school and the size of the site is very, very similar to Chaska High School, which opened in I believe 1996. And the capacity of the school will be identical to Chaska High School, so Chaska High School was just expanded and completed last year and is for now 2,000 students. And so this new high school will also be for 2,000 students. So in the future when these schools are at capacity, there will be grades 9 through 12. 500 students approximately in each grade level, and neither of the two schools are intended to be expanded upon that size. They're both in the 400,000 square foot range. Chaska High School is slightly larger. This school is a little bit more efficient. The circulation inside so it has just slightly less square footage. About 406,000 square feet. Just to, if I can look at the site plan for a minute, the components of the school include the classroom area of the building, which is subdivided into four teams, if you will. If you're familiar with Chaska High School, as you drive by, you can see the team areas towards Pioneer Trail. In this case it's, the circulation is a little bit more internalized and you won't be able to depict the team areas from the outside of the building. So it's more in one area of the building, which focuses on a commons. And the entrance, the commons to the building is both the vehicular drop off and the bus drop off. So one of the things from a security standpoint that we've always tried to do on this project is to bring people directly into the commons so we don't have a lot of spread out entrances, and that's one of the things that led to the bus drop off being on the east side and a lower level. The vehicular drop off being on the west side at one level above so the commons really connects the floor levels. The main floor level and that lower floor level and when the kids come in off the bus, there's main doors and steps coming up. I'll show you that in a minute, but the commons is in the center of the building and it feeds into the classroom area. Also into the performing arts area which faces the west, and the gymnasium which faces the east. One of the reasons that it works out very well to have the walk out level is because the gymnasium is a top loaded gymnasium, like Chaska High School, if you've attended basketball games there. You come in at a commons level and you come in at the top of the seating and descend down and the playing court is at a lower level. So as we go through this you can understand that the playing level is at that 20 foot level below the main floor level, and there are approximately one-third, maybe less than one-third of the floor area is on the lower floor level. I can go into the plan in more detail if you'd like to know more about it but I'll tell you more about the exterior of the building, and could you help me with the control on this. I don't know if we need to change it, yeah. This is an image of the west side of the building from Lyman Boulevard. This shows some of the wetland areas and storm drainage that would be in the foreground. The approximately 500 parking spaces on the west side. The drop off area coming toward the main entrance. The main entrance going directly into the commons. You can see the glassy wall of the commons beyond this façade is classroom area. It's a two story façade. These are team resource areas that project outside the building. Those are feature places within the school. The administration area is right at the front door, next to the commons. You can see the 3 flags that we have at the entrance. This façade is the music area. There are choral, orchestra and band rooms along there and you can see the clear story windows all along that west wall bringing natural light in. The tallest piece of the building is this element which is the fly loft on the theater, or auditorium. It will be approximately the same size as at Chaska High School. 650 seats. And what you can see about this, on this exterior, a few of the materials. We're trying to use warm, natural materials. Two colors of brick. Using kind of a horizontal layered pattern, and then we're using cast stone as the light colored material. It's like a concrete 25 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 product that looks very much like natural stone. We're using that as a contrasting high light at the entrance area on the fly loft, and also at the main team resource areas and special places within the building. This then is a close up. Basically zooming in on the shop before. There's an automobile drop off here. This is the main vehicular entrance. This is the administration area. A portion of the music wing. A portion of the classroom wing, and then this glassy area is the commons. So you mentioned in your previous meeting talking about seeing activity. Have light spill out. That's the important idea in this design. That the commons area will be a beacon of light after hours and it will attract people and demonstrate the activity inside of the building. And we know now that rather than saying New High School it will say Chanhassen High School. Here's another colored plan that we don't really need to talk about, but this is a view from the southeast. If you were coming from the intersection of Lyman and Audubon Road towards the southeast side of the school. This would be an image of the bus drop off and/or after hours parking area. Event parking. It shows the character of the landscape that we're hoping to achieve. That a lot of it is very natural in areas away from the building. This wall in the distance is the southern wall of the gymnasium and that is a feature wall of the cast stone material. You can see how the lowest level of the building, which is really the walkout level is treated a little bit differently from the upper two floors of the building so that it emphasizes that walkout. And we think it's going to be a good opportunity for the kinds of learning activities that are down here, including industrial technology, shop to us older folks. The art program is on that lower level with a lot of glass and the ability to walk out to the eastern side. And then beyond that point is the bus entrance that we'll show you. On the south end of the building are, on the upper two floors are the 12 science classrooms, so they get nice south light. There's a greenhouse on the upper floor actually that projects out from the façade so that that special angled façade with continuous glass is in the science wings where they need more light for biology and so forth. The remainder of the typical classrooms have approximately 12 feet, 12 foot wide windows. They're approximately 6 feet tall. This is, could I just look at the partial floor plan for a second. This is the lowest floor plan and it again shows the industrial tech. Art classrooms. The bus entrance coming directly in and then stairs going up. And then there's also access to the lower two floor levels where we have a main gymnasium that has 3 full sized basketball courts. Bleacher seating for 2,000. A central area with all the team locker rooms and PE locker rooms. And then the other side of the gymnasium is 3 gym spaces of an auxiliary gym and 2 open gym spaces. Above the locker rooms on the upper level are things like weights, fitness, etc.. This image is looking from the east back towards the bus entrance, so you can see the bus pulling up here. The gymnasium on the side. This is the entrance façade with students going in. You'll be able to see through the glass, up to the commons beyond, and that's, so on this side we go in and up stairs to the commons. There's an elevator access also on the opposite to come directly into the commons level. Just briefly I'll show you some images of the commons with stairs coming down from the upper level. A lot of natural light coming into the commons. In terms of the plan, you can now see this central commons with the classroom area, the gym, the food service, the auditorium, administration all centering on that common space, and this is the stairway down to the bus entrance. So again entering that commons from two different sides. These are the ways of getting out from the building to the north. So from the music area, from the PE area, one will be able to go out towards the north. I won't go into the second floor plan, but this is an image of the north side of the building. So you might be standing about at the pipeline looking back towards the building and you can see the, this is the tall part of the auditorium. You can also see how the building steps down and gets lower in scale as it goes toward the wetland on the 26 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 west. And there's kind of a main walkway that goes along the west side of the building that brings people from the front door of the building to the competition field area. Another quick glimpse of the commons on the inside of the building. And there's one last shot that I wanted to show you. This is the night shot of the building where we're hoping to let the commons be very illuminated and welcoming as you arrive. We're showing lighting on the flags and the signage for the building. This was one of the comments that staff made about the directionality of the lighting and one of the things that we are hoping to achieve is to illuminate that cast stone wall on the auditorium and in a way, if you've been by Chaska High School you know how for instance the conical skylight is kind of a beacon and at night. It draws people in. That's the intent here is to make it be a very welcoming community place by doing some exterior lighting like this. I'll stop there. Do you have any questions for me about the design? McDonald: I just had one question. On your drawing it shows the view of the north science wing and you say that that's the road for the bus. Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought we were talking about there would be, is that, does that grade depict the elevations of the road? Steve Miller: It doesn't depict, if you look, I'll show the image. To the right it would drop off more severely as you back off. So it's not, I wouldn't say that it's perfectly accurate. McDonald: I was expecting something else and then I see this and I'm wondering about the issue with. Steve Miller: Could I just show you this one, which is looking from the neighborhood towards the building from the, on the east side of the building and you can see retaining walls here, and here. The retaining wall that I believe you're referring to Chairman McDonald is down here where there's a pretty significant retaining wall from the bus drive down to the wetland. And that one doesn't show in the other view that I showed you. Any other questions? Steve Pumper: Great. Then I'll just end with some comments if I may, before I know you open it up to the public and have some deliberations, etc. Just to respond to a few points that were raised tonight and also by the parks and rec commission. They're asking for a continuous path around the building. It's something that we would certainly support and can accommodate. As far as additional parking goes, and the turf fields, we want to achieve both those things. However it will be a financial concern and I know that it's just staff's recommendation that they would like to see that happen. Not necessarily as a part of the approval process, but I don't want to mislead this commission or you know the City Council that that is going to be a for sure thing. That's not part of our plan submittal. It's something that we want to achieve but it will be a decision that we'll make on bid opening day, or shortly thereafter. McDonald: Excuse me. Can you explain that a little bit, what's meant by turf fields and if you're not going to put that in, what are your plans? Steve Pumper: Sure. You mean what are our plans if we don't have artificial surface? McDonald: I guess yeah. That's what I'm trying to get at is I guess turf field, what we're talking about is natural grass. 27 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Steve Pumper: Yeah, right now the plans as they are submitted are grass fields. So grass stadium field and grass practice fields. What we will have in our bids are three alternates. One is to have artificial surface put on the stadium field and one, or the second alternative would be to put artificial surface on one of the practice fields and the third would be to make the third practice field, or the second practice field, excuse me, artificial as well. So what we'd like to achieve are 3 fields with artificial turf but it really is a budget concern. Dillon: Why was the Park Director making that recommendation? Aanenson: They just thought it would be more practical. It's not a city ordinance, as Mr. Pumper has pointed out. They just felt that they wanted to give them that heads up. It's not an ordinance requirement. And as he stated, they're accommodating it in the bid. Larson: Is there a reason why they would want that? Aanenson: Just to get more use out of them. Larson Like spring, fall? Aanenson: Well yes. Steve Pumper: If you don't mind Kate. Aanenson: Sure, go ahead. Steve Pumper: I'm speaking on behalf of the park commission but certainly the school district, as we do with Chaska and as we do with Chanhassen right now and actually with other entities, we share fields as much as possible. Our communities have been very kind to let the school district use their fields when we need them and you know we kind of return the favor as well as much as possible. So if our fields are artificial turf, they'll be able to be played on much more than if they're grass fields. You know they can pretty much be played on all the time without having any recovery time as is the case if you have grass fields. So just getting more use for the school district and more use for the communities. Larson: Is that tougher to play on? Steve Pumper: Pardon me? Larson: Is that tougher to play on? Steve Pumper: No, not with the type of fields they have now, it's actually very good. Larson: I have a daughter that would be on it once so. 28 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Steve Pumper: Oh okay. And then I'd also like to comment on Lyman Boulevard. The staff report shows what I would suggest is a minimum standard of, be required for access points for the schools. What we would like to see is a third stop light on the intersection that's closest to the railroad track. That will be somewhat dependent I think ultimately on what the County decides on letting us have it or not and certainly we're in the negotiation phase, as is the City of Chan and the City of Chaska and the County you know as well. What is that boulevard going to look like? Ultimately how is it going to be designed? So we can't stand here before you, nor do I think your staff can as well and say this is what it's going to look like but again would propose there are some minimum standards but we are really hoping that that, that we're going to have 3 intersections, 3 lighted intersections going to the site. McDonald: Excuse me. Would you show on that map the intersections that you want to have lighted? Steve Pumper: These two are, as part of the approval, will be lit. This one right now is just turn lanes in and out. We would like to have that lit as well, and that's strictly a safety concern. I mean it's not a traffic. Larson: Is that something that would affect, or would it trip the light if there was a train coming or something to make sure that it's a red or. Steve Pumper: Boy I don't know. Jay, do you know if they have that stuff? I'm not sure. All I can tell you is this, we have 3 stop lights now, as probably many of you are ware, on Pioneer Trail at Chaska High School. Actually 2 of them are right adjacent to the high school, or connected to the high school, and then just down the road is Pioneer Freshmen Center and that has the third traffic light. What is good about that, and what I know they can do is they time them so that you know for those 15 minutes of the day in the morning and the 15 minutes of the day at night, that's when you know we have a lot of traffic coming in and out. Certainly there's some traffic throughout the day but that's the heavy time and they time the lights so that you know they turn red and green quite often during that period of the day and the rest of the day they are green considerably most of the time for traffic going on Pioneer Trail. So I would certainly suspect the same would be achieved on Lyman Boulevard. That the 3 lights would be green most of the time for people traveling on Lyman and then again during the brief time in the morning and the brief time in the afternoon, there would be more frequent reds and greens. I'm not sure how it would tie into the railroad track but. Larson: Yeah, I don't know because. Steve Pumper: Your staff might know because actually I get caught up on the railroad track when I go on 101 quite often so I know those lights are fixed somehow that way. Let's see if I have something else. I think the last piece I want to talk about is the staff's recommendation about the lighting of the building itself, which Steve Miller alluded to a little bit. And this is following Chairman McDonald's conversation of how he feels about variances so I stand before you a little sheepishly because certainly this is not a hardship. We can, you know this thing is not dependent upon whether or not we have a variation on the lighting or not, but what our goal is, is for the 3 flag, and they're actually depicted well there. We want to have a United States 29 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 flag. We want to have a Minnesota flag and then we want to have this Chanhassen High School nd flag, whatever that logo will be and they're deciding that on March 22, if you're interested. But we would like to have those 3, and they will be in front of the building, as you can see, and we would like to have those up lit again just to kind of drawing people and drawing attention to the front entrance of the building. We also want the theater fly loft, the façade there, to be up lit as well. Once again just kind of showing off the building. Saying this is a gathering point. This is kind of a signature building in the city of Chanhassen. It's a place where we expect to see many, many of the residents of Chanhassen and the residents of the cities included in District 112 gather, so we're just, we would like to see that variance, just as an aesthetic focal point you know for this, this is a special building. If the commission feels differently or the council feels differently, we will certainly accept that and work with whatever you say but that is what we're asking for as a variance. And I think those are. McDonald: Can I ask you a question? Steve Pumper: Yeah. McDonald: What affect is this going to have on the neighborhoods, because I know at one time I talked to people in the area and there was concern with the football fields. I think we settled most of that but what affect would this have on the surrounding neighborhoods? Steve Pumper: I'm going to ask Steve, if you have a, if you can answer that question, if there's any. Certainly you're going to see a lit façade. Steve Miller: Yeah, this side of the building I would say has no affect on the neighborhoods, facing the west. This, actually the façade of the fly loft is not going to be seen from many, if any existing neighborhoods because most predominantly it's going to be seen from Lyman as you go across there. The people that are the furthest south may be able to see that. Certainly it's not going to be on later than 10:00 at night or you know, I mean it's not an all day, all night kind of thing. Our assumption would be that it's for events. Like you're having a performance in the theater and then it might be illuminated like a marquee. The other point that was made by staff was can we down light it rather than up light it? The fly loft is approximately 64 feet high and we believe that it would be a safety issue to re-lamp lights up on the cornice of a 64 foot high fly loft rather than have them on the roof, the readily accessible roof below and to be able to illuminate that wall. The other point is that the name of the high school, Chanhassen High School, we would like that to be evident when people arrive. McDonald: And again you're only talking about illuminating one face, is that correct? And this is all reflective. It will shine up, the light will shine off of based upon the stone and based upon color. Steve Miller: It would be, I mean this is maybe a rough analogy but you know the façade of the Walker Art Center when they have shows advertised on that, on the north façade of that and it's illuminated. It would be, we're not saying it would always be, that there would be banners or anything on there but it would be kind of a symbolic image. 30 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 McDonald: Okay. Steve Pumper: And those are my comments. Thank you. McDonald: Okay, thank you very much. Do we have any questions of the applicant before everybody sits down? Papke: You mentioned that the lighting of the stadium had been addressed. McDonald: Right. I guess what I meant by that was from talking to people in the neighborhood that had been one thing, you know during football games and those things, what was going to be the affect of those lights on the homes directly behind there. I don't see where that's become a big issue because it is a football field and it seems to have been accepted and again they're only going to be turned on during certain times and there seems to be an acceptance of that for the purpose. But I was just concerned about you know the lights on the fly house and everything, what's that going to do. Okay at this point then I guess we're now ready for public comments. Anybody wishing to address the council, we would ask that you please come forward. State your name and address and address your comments to the commissioners. Andy Kayati: Good evening Mr. Commissioner. Mr. Chairman, commission members. My name is Andy Kayati. I reside at 8715 Valley View Place in Chanhassen. Reside in Bluff Creek Estates neighborhood which is directly east of this proposed location, or actual location. I've attended a number of meetings. A number of issues have been addressed by staff, by the architects and there are still some questions that I have related to this project and if you don't mind, your props are far better than mine so I'd just like to use them so that I can, I have a tendency to look at north. McDonald: Go right ahead. Andy Kayati: Some of the questions that I have myself, my neighbors, revolve around the retaining walls. There are a significant number of retaining walls within this project. Those retaining walls being this area here, this area here, here, here, throughout this area. What's not shown on this depiction, which I'd like to show here. Well actually that doesn't give a good depiction, but is the well, this here works a little bit better. This is the photo that I took off of the internet, and this is the neighborhood in which we reside. If you'll notice these houses here, I reside right here. Mr. Gomez resides right here. All have a direct view of all these retaining walls that are shown there. These being the retaining walls here, here. My concern, my questions as it relates to the construction and the materials. Frankly we're not going to avoid the retaining walls. They are a given. We've all come to accept that. However I attended the same meetings that we discussed, or council, or commission, where we discussed the Autoplex project on Audubon Road. I don't believe that all the members here were all a part of the commission at the time however the developer in that particular project, and that project was far further from houses than our houses are currently, and we're not going to move them but that's where they are. That project, it was required that they not use traditional Keystone blocks. That they be a more architecturally pleasing material. Something along the line of a boulder wall or something like that was my understanding. Considering the magnitude of the these walls, I propose to the 31 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 commission to make the stipulation that it be a requirement that these walls be constructed in an architecturally pleasing to the eye manner. Not just this brick edifice of Keystone facing our neighborhoods. We've had the luxury of I'll call it for the last 13-14 years of looking at a very nice landscape and that's changing and we can't do anything about that but we'd like to see it so that what we are looking at is pleasing to the eye so I'd like to propose to the commission to take that under advisement. To at least use what you had proposed for. Aanenson: Let me make a point of clarification. We're just talking about this right now. We don't remember that as a condition. I can check on that and be happy to do that but I do not recall that as a condition of approval for that subdivision. It said it had to meet city ordinance. I'm not disagreeing with you… Andy Kayati: Well I believe that that condition may have been exerted at or issued when it went in front of council. Aanenson: The City Council? Andy Kayati: Yes. Aanenson: Yeah, I'll have to double check on that. I don't think it was all retaining walls. It might have been one or two. Andy Kayati: I'm not asking for every retaining wall. Frankly the ones that face the west side, face the street but I mean were facing the neighborhood, so that's one of my concerns. Another issue is the site plan currently shows pedestrian walkways. Pedestrian walkway accessing here from Boulder Creek neighborhood, which is up here. And this is the creek. This depiction does not show currently, this depiction shows that in this particular area, shows a walking path that comes in from the existing walking path on the east side of the bluff. Aanenson: That's been removed. Andy Kayati: It has been removed? Aanenson: That's correct. Andy Kayati: Okay. Aanenson: The one you have in front today is correct. That's an old one. Andy Kayati: However this one still exists? Aanenson: That's correct. Andy Kayati: My concern with regard to that has to do with access to the school from the neighborhoods. Frankly if it's partly a blessing in disguise that you moved this one so they'll still have access from the current path on the east side. My concern being students being what 32 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 students are, wishing to get around the parking permit rules, will park in the neighborhoods on either side. They'll park in the neighborhoods as it relates to sporting events, particularly football. You're talking about bringing in 2,000 people into this stadium with access area for the comment about Eden Prairie. We play well, whoever it may be. How does the commission and eventually council protect the neighbors of the area from street parking as it relates to that in those areas? Aanenson: Do you want me to answer that Alyson or do you want to? Fauske: I can. Mr. Chair and Planning Commissioners, if I may interject at this point. When staff, today staff went out and visited out to the Eden Prairie High School site. There's an existing neighborhood across Valley View Road from that neighborhood. We really do draw on other neighboring communities with this. What staff is looking at is an opportunity, if this becomes a problem, we can look at doing a no parking Monday through Friday from, Eden Prairie has from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., during the school hours. We would certainly want to look at something like that if it becomes an issue. That would require council resolution though for a no parking ordinance. Aanenson: But we are prepared to address that if it becomes a problem. Andy Kayati: And I guess what I'd like to is just interject this point that, that if that were the case and you address that, that you extend the hours to include special events. Football games, things of that nature because frankly it'd be quite an incurament on the neighborhoods. Aanenson: We're committed to monitoring that. McDonald: Okay. Andy Kayati: Another question I had is, the exposure of the building has a number of large windows. I believe that you said they were 12 foot high, 6 on the eastern exposure. One of the questions that I had as it relates to those is, are there any provisions as far as reflective, anti- reflective coatings or anything like that because we're going to have a large number of windows there that directly in the east for sunrise, in the morning and they're large panels that are going to be reflecting off of that. That view that you're showing there is actually from the northeast. That is the eastern exposure. Aanenson: That's the best, if we can zoom in on that. About how much windows are on that side. Steve Miller: Would you like me to answer that? Aanenson: Yes. Can you zoom in on that, that side of the building? Steve Miller: It's clear Low E glass so there's no, I mean glass has no reflectivity. We feel strongly about not putting in reflective glass on buildings like this so you will not be any more reflective than a normal house glass would be. 33 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Andy Kayati: Okay. As long as that's taken into consideration, we'd appreciate that. Another question that I had was in regards to the property for the Chanhassen High School has been both farm and wetlands up until this point. I guess what I'm requesting is a comprehensive landscaping plan so that we can see what that landscaping is going to be on the east. My particular concern is the east side of the building. But all around. Specifically as you can see in this view here, there's rather a larger large edifice that goes, that the neighbors to the east have to look at. By looks today, wanting the Planning Commission to see what the requirements are for vegetation height, tree heights and things like that. What I'm requesting is that if, whatever that is, that it be let's put it this way, maximized or made, the vegetation be larger starting out. Frankly at my age, in 20 years when I'm much older and much grayer, that's when the vegetation is going to cover the building and I'd like to really take advantage of it at this particular point in time so anything that can be done in that area. Aanenson: Mr. Chair, the landscaping plan was submitted. It is one of your sheets. We can show it here quickly. I guess it's multiple sheets. We did describe it in detail. I don't know if you had a chance to read through the staff report? Andy Kayati: No. Aanenson: Okay. Those are available on line too. That's alright. It's on page 9 for the Planning Commission's information. The staff report. They do exceed the requirements, except for the parking lot plantings but they do meet all the requirements, except for some addition on the parking lot, which is up on the other side. Again, kind of the theme that we had, because of the wetland and the location of the site, we did go with more native type species. We also did recommend that they put tubes in there around the seedlings and some of the other plantings regarding deer and other wildlife that may want to eat that. I'd be happy to show it to you what we did in the staff report. Andy Kayati: As far as the trees though and that type of vegetation, for instance that are shown down along this area here. I mean are, is there a size requirement? Aanenson: Sure. Yes, there is. Andy Kayati: And what is that? Generous: 2 1/2 caliper inch is the minimum requirement. They start at that. They have 3 1/2 inch. They have 3 inch, so they mix it up. Aanenson: Then there's also a recommendation, and going back to the retaining wall. This is on the landscaping part of the staff report. There is also a recommendation that they put vines on those walls such as Virginia Creeper, English Ivy to add interest and color so that you're not looking at that blank wall, and again they're not, they're different heights to the walls. Some of them are stepped so again as they indicated there'll be plantings inbetween some of those too, the trees to break those up, so maybe we can go through that in more detail with you at another time. 34 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Andy Kayati: Okay. And I guess, so this question here, I think you've answered my question. The only thing I would like to see as far as the caliper, dimension of the trees, them be at least an inch or so bigger because they're going to be dwarfed outside a building of that size. The next question I had with regards to this, and it's probably something that should be addressed to the school district, and that is with regards to the Bluff Creek Estates neighborhood is directly east of this property and the prevailing wind comes out of the west. My question is, what provisions are there for preventing debris, trash, things like that from being blown into the wetlands, and then subsequently into our neighborhoods as a result of football games, baseball games, general student daily activities and things like that, and I don't know if it's something that the fences would capture. I'm not sure what kind of daily maintenance is done and those types of questions but it's a question that I have. The other question that I have was related to the illumination hours on the building and I, you know frankly illuminating the theater portion of the building is fine. The only thing that I would ask is that it not be illuminated all night. If there could be some limits on that. I guess my last question would be, looking at the bus drop off area, I think that having the appropriate vegetation will help with noise abatement in that area as it relates to buses and things like that. That's another reason for asking for I guess more mature landscaping, specifically on this side of the building because as I said before, our properties are considerably closer than some of the other projects that I've seen and the activity levels are far higher than those too so. And with that I'll rest. McDonald: Thank you very much. Does anyone else wish to make comment? Al Gomez: Chairman, commissioners, good evening. Al Gomez. I'm one of Andy's neighbors. 8748 Valley View Place. Yes, I would like a little better understanding. When we started the meeting with the previous proposition with Heartland, Chairman you were very adamant about the variances and we're here to talk about two main variances as I understood them. One was this entryway here, and the other one was a third story for the walkout piece. Is that correct? Of which I'm still marveled that we approve landscaping or grading and we yet still proposing a variance at this stage as to whether it should be 2 or 3 story, and that's the piece we tried to bring up to the committee the last time we were here was we were passing a grading ordinance without having this in front of us to say you know, okay we're going ahead and grading, yet we haven't approved 2 versus 3 stories. We're going through a ton, a ton of work to preserve the wetlands as the city can attest to, yet again as we look at some of the vegetation, some of the retaining walls that we're doing, it's almost counter to the amount of money and effort that we're putting into preserving this. The, I know we mentioned on the traffic lights. I'm in full support of the Finance Director that with my daughter now attending the Chaska High School, those lights are critical. That's a ton of traffic with 1,100 parking spots. Not having one there is to me, I'm marveled that that's not already in the plans and further along. I know we mentioned a traffic study with the railroad tracks, and we talked about the impact of when that comes through the city, but do, can we compare the traffic through the city at any given time to the entry or exodus of the number of students and/or buses coming through here? And again I would say that's going to be a hazard whether it's to or from school in the morning, when they get out of school and in evening activity that takes place, specifically sporting events. Again, this entry way with the buses is news to us. It's not anything we have seen before. Obviously we were concerned about the grading and the building, but seeing the entryway now and the bus and the amount of traffic, I too an concerned about the buffer. How do we protect number one, the aesthetics of the 35 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 wetland and again part of the main reason why a lot of us bought the properties along the area that we did, but also to protect the noise and garbage, potential garbage control. Couple other concerns that I have with the pipeline. I guess with the amount of dirt that we moved, I'm a little curious as to whether there was an opportunity to utilize some of that to improve the grading or the level on the side of where the athletic fields are at. With that being lower and adjacent to and draining down to the wetland, obviously that's a concern as to how it's going to drain and what's going to drain into not only a natural wetland. And I know we talked about the possibility of artificial turf or a composite of some sort and fully understand why you would want to consider that, but again as you start to put that other material in there, how does that impact if there is drainage and it goes into this wetland that we've spent so much money to preserve. So those are a few of the comments that I had and concerns with the project. Again, please don't get us wrong. I've got two daughters that will go the high school. We fully support the high school and welcome the facility. We take advantage of the Chaska High School now and love it, but it's still, when we've got the property, you know we bought it with a lookout and a higher property value because of that so we're trying to find that common ground of what can we do to make it you know usable and maximize for the school, yet still appealing for us and retain some of the privacy that we've gotten to enjoy this far. McDonald: Okay, thank you very much. Al Gomez: You're welcome. McDonald: Does anyone else wish to make comment? Thor Smith: Commissioners, I'm Thor Smith at 2139 Boulder Road. I guess my only comment would be, or request would be that we get some type of a commitment from the school district to work with the city and the county when the ultimate widening of Lyman happens. My concern is with the railroad tracks and the, along Lyman Boulevard where you'll have a lot of children or kids walking across the railroad tracks from the neighborhood to the north of there, and I just, I have a safety concern with the kids crossing you know right over the railroad tracks. I know that train comes very frequently. I live right, it's right in my back yard. It comes very frequently and it's not, it's not on a scheduled routine at all, and I guess my concern, I know I've talked about this a number of time and it's not necessarily, it'd be difficult to put on their property because the railroad tracks isn't on the school's property but, to have some type of a commitment or something from them that would you know, let us work together to create some type of a safe crossing for the students to get across the railroad tracks. McDonald: Thank you. Does anyone else wish to make comment? Joel Lehrke: Good evening. My name's Joel Lehrke, 2329 Boulder Road. I'd like to first start off by saying, Mr. Pumper thank you. We appreciate the conversations we've had with you. You've been very receptive and we appreciate like our comments on the fence. The first item I would like to talk to about is that railroad track along here with the fence. I know that you guys have said you are going to do one but like you made the comment…kids will hike those fences. Just remember Homecoming night, football games, kids kind of wander around. I think it's very neat that it's going to be kind of recessed. I went to school in Waconia and that has the old 36 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 stadium that has the, basically field that all the grass and everything stayed and it's just a really neat effect that it has, but it also will cause, I think during those games kids will run to the ends of the field and disappear into the trees. Disappear into the tracks and the tracks will be a freeway, and we want to make sure that there's something higher maybe than 4 feet there to make sure the kids aren't getting there. I am trying to find, Kate if you could help me, the page that has the stop lights plan. Aanenson: Page 11 or 14. Joel Lehrke: Is that what I'm looking for? Aanenson: Yeah, page 14. The diagram. Yep. Joel Lehrke: If I could get you to zoom. Aanenson: Yeah, just keep zooming. There we go. Joel Lehrke: As we were talking about with the area with the stop lights here, we've got the railroad tracks. This would be the area we're talking with the fence. One other area I would like to ask you to help us with. I know we're fighting the colony on this one when it comes to this road. As a fellow was saying here you know looking into the widening of this road. What we're really looking for you know, it's like expected to happen in 2009. It's hoped to happen in 2009 and I know when it comes to county road systems, the city can only really basically ask the county to do the things but whatever efforts that you can put forward to get the county to first look into widening of that road. To get it done in time for the high school. And the other thing is, the possible future stop light, I would highly recommend that would be there. This is a very curved type deal with Lyman Boulevard. I live in this area right here. This will become a major feed from Highway 5 going towards school for the kids there to the north, and it's a high accident rate just because it's a tough view to see the way the road is curved. My son is just starting driving and he's just as bad where he doesn't always stop fully to the full stop and kind of floats through because you try to cut it. A lot of screeching there so whatever efforts you could do. I agree with the other stop lights. I think we'll need them all. I think county will eventually come to us and say that the stop lights are all too close. I'm sure that will be a problem in the future so we'll have to work something out there, but it is going to be an issue. The other thing is with, as you said with the train, that crossing. We've looked at such things, you know the superintendent and Mr. Pumper have both talked to us that basically a railroad is basically almost a sovereign nation. We're going to need efforts from the city, the county. We have some possibilities with certain congressmen that are on the transportation committee that we've heard some funds available that come in regards to safety that we're going to try and follow through in our neighborhood and try and make contact with them but we're just asking for your help. Whatever you can do to be pretty forceful there to help us to get something there because I don't know if you know or not, right now there isn't even a bike path crossing the railroad. It's basically just road and the side of the roads and you know our kids will be in that area probably where it's not even considered busing and when they're that old, they don't want to really ride the bus anyway anymore so they're going to walk. That's all I have is the consideration for the fence, the stop 37 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 light and whatever efforts you can do to make sure that we get that road expanded on time and it doesn't happen maybe 4 years after the school opens. McDonald: Okay, thank you. There was a gentleman back there by the door that wanted to speak. Dennis Chadderdon: My name is Dennis Chadderdon. I live at 8900 Audubon Road. My concern right now is with the erosion control that's going on inside the wetland. Kate, do you know what type that is? Aanenson: That's a MnDot project within the wetland so. Dennis Chadderdon: Okay. So that has nothing to do with the city? Aanenson: Correct. They're managing that project, but I can follow up on that for you. Dennis Chadderdon: Yeah, that would be great because when I built my place 5 years ago and I worked both with Kate and Bob, I had to put Type III erosion control in there and I'm 75 feet off the creek. At the closest point of the creek, which if you know anything about that, it consists of a snow fence, bales of hay, 2 stakes in each one, and I'm sorry, Type I in front of the snow fence, dug 6 inches in. I mean it was a major process, and they're back there scraping everything and they've got a few little Type I's around the trees. And when you put the people who live in the city and make jump through all the hoops and make, you know go through all the processes of doing things correctly, and then they come in there and just kind of put it here and there and totally scrape the earth, it causes a concern so, that's just my point at this time. Thanks for your time. McDonald: Thank you very much. Does anyone else wish to come forward and make a comment? Seeing no one else come forward, I will close the public meeting and I'll bring it back up to deliberation for the commissioners and Kevin, you look ready. I'll start with you. Dillon: Wow. A lot to process on here. Thanks to the school and their people that they're working with on this. I thought they did a good job of explaining things and also thanks to the neighbors that raised some concerns. You know it sounds like some of the biggest of the concerns that the neighbors have are in the process of getting addressed. You know maybe not all of them but they're certainly not getting ignored, and so I would just encourage the staff and the school district to continue to try to collaborate with the neighbors to see if there's, you know find a common ground that was soft because also things like, you know people just aren't being…about it. I mean they've got good legitimate concerns and you know it seems like both sides are listening so I would hope that we could work through that, and it sounds like good progress is being made on the key ones anyways. Larson: Okay. Well this has been a mountain of work that has gone into this and I read every bit of it today and it's amazing how much you've had to address. One of my main concerns that I have is the stop lights, it's effect on the proposed possible stop light at, where the parking lot is for the kids. I too will have a high school student there that year and she would probably be 38 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 crossing the railroad tracks and so that is a concern for me. The fencing, by the retaining walls, that's another issue I would like to make sure that we have the steeper ones with the taller fences. Just on the off chance that kids are going to be hopping the fence, if it's an 8 foot, they'd be less inclined to do so. And then let's see, which gentleman brought up the fence along the railroad track? I think that's a great idea and I didn't see that that was part of any of the proposals anywhere so perhaps that's something that would be considered as well. Other than that, looks like a fabulous project. Thomas: I have a real quick question. Just on the railroad tracks. Is this part of the completely the school's property or is it? It's not even their property right? I mean. Aanenson: No. It's a separate easement over the railroad right-of-way. Thomas: Okay. Aanenson: A sovereign nation as kind is similar… Thomas: Okay. So…a fence would be quite nice there. However if it's going to be just impossible, sovereign nation and they're not going to be able to put a fence in there so. Aanenson: They've got a fence there. Thomas: Well yeah, but not next to like the, it's on your property right? Mr. Pumper: It's on our property. Thomas: Yeah, okay. Mr. Pumper: 6 foot high. Thomas: That's fine. So that sounds good. I guess addressing some of the neighbors concern, the retaining wall, I'm curious as to the Keystone possibilities. How that's going to affect the retaining wall. And I'm also very concerned about that parking in the neighborhood. Knowing how, at least when I was in high school how we did our best to do whatever possible to get around parking in the lot and not having to pay the fee so…how creative kids can be when it comes to how far away they can park and walk and stuff like that so, as long as we're going to monitor it, make sure that we're watching that, I feel secure in that and staff did a good job so. Papke: Okay. It's not very often as a planning commission that we have to deal with a major public building like this, and one of the things I've been wrestling with a little bit is the last speaker from the public who was mentioning the MnDot activities, it kind of sensitized me to, you know we're doing a number of things here that if this was a single family dwelling, we wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I mean we're always very adamant about the Bluff Creek primary zone and so on, yet this is a public structure and I think we're doing the right things here but you know, it makes me, it gives me kind of butterflies in the stomach because we're doing things that you know, were this a single family dwelling, we certainly wouldn't do. So in regards 39 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 to the variances we're granting, I think going through the Bluff Creek primary zone, and again getting back to some of the environmental issues that were mentioned before, makes me a little nervous but I think it's the right thing to do. I think in the findings of fact that staff pointed out, I don't think there's too many alternatives to this and I think from a safety perspective it makes a lot of sense. The variance for the 3 story building, again if this was a single family dwelling, we would not hold still for it but the fact that this is, the site is really perfect for this. It really accommodates the bus entry. I think it makes great sense under the circumstances. One of the things that we haven't chatted about too much is item number 3 under recommendation C of the staff, the façade flood lights. I've been wrestling with that a little bit as we've been talking here and I just, again it's just a public building. It would seem to me that we're not talking tremendous amounts of light pollution here, particularly when looked at in the perspective of the stadium lighting. I think the stadium lighting is going to be 1,000 times more powerful than a couple little light bulbs we're going to shine up on the side of the building, so I think from a light pollution perspective, which is why we don't allow up lighting in the first place, I think this one is fairly reasonable so I'd be somewhat inclined from aesthetic perspective to actually allow that to go against the staff recommendation. I think that makes pretty good sense. Aanenson: While we're on that Commissioner Papke, could I just add. The staff didn't address that in your variances so while you're talking about that, I'm on page 24 of your staff report. Papke: Yep. That's where I am too. Aanenson: Yep, so if you did choose to add lighting, I guess we were looking at that from a neighborhood and light pollution but. Papke: But it is on the west side. Aanenson: Correct. I would concur with that and the stadium lighting is recessed. We get the same issue at Lake Ann. On a warm softball night, the lights illuminate and one of the things the city has worked hard to do is to provide cut off lighting so we don't have that ambient light going up. But I just wanted to address, if you did want to add that as a condition, I just want to point out for the record that you would have to add that for a 3 story building. You'd also want to add for up lighting, and then also under your findings of fact, which would be found on page, it's the findings of fact fall right behind that. It'd be on the fourth page of findings of fact where it talks about variances. Then you'd also want to add one for up lighting and for the reasons you may want to state. That it's not within the neighborhood's visibility. It would be cut off at a certain period of time. Whatever you feel would be appropriate just so, that would have to be on the record. Papke: Okay. Aanenson: Just point of clarification. Papke: That's it. 40 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 McDonald: I would support an amendment like that, if you wanted to make. I think the school didn't make a case for what you want to do. I'm kind of amazed at this whole plan. I kind of visualized this thing. You've done a good job I think putting something of such importance in an area that I'm not sure we'd build anything else there. It really isn't a good area to put a subdivision. It's not really a good area for I think commercial development or anything so I think you've found a good use. But there's a number of things I guess to address all these problems. This is not the first high school that's ever been built. We have 3 of them around us. Chaska, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie They all had the same problems and I guess you know staff has made the comment that they intend to go out in the community and go look lessons learned there. I'm very familiar with Minnetonka and I have to say you've learned lessons quite well there about traffic flow because that is one of their biggest problems. So I encourage you again to find out you know what problems have happened at these other schools and design around it. I have confidence that you're doing that. A lot of these other issues, I mean I applaud you for the fence. That's probably the only way anything is going to get done there. You're going to have to put it on your property and you made the commitment to do that. I think to do anything else, people mentioned the federal government going to get that. That will take forever. As long as the school's willing to do it, I think that does solve the problem. There is a safety issue, which is why I was asking about the elevations, especially down toward the soccer field because those are pretty level. That is going to become a natural egress. Kids are kids and that's what's going to happen. So yeah, I would encourage you to kind of look at that area and I think you're aware that you've got a problem down there. On the other thing, yeah on the variances. I think what we have to look at is, this is a public good. This is also going to become a source of public pride for our community. I think that you know this is going to be an area that people will point to with pride and it will become a landmark within this community. It is something I think we can all be very proud of. It was voted on by the voters of this community and I think everyone does support it and again, the design I believe reflects the concerns and I really have no problems granting any variances to this for those reasons, and I did ask about the mitigation within the wetlands because I do feel yes, we should hold everybody to the same standards but again, we are getting something out of that which is what we always ask for. If we're going to allow people to do things and to grant variances, there should be a trade off and the school seems willing to do all that. It will become, and again it now I think opens up these areas to the public much more than was open before. And for all those reasons, and you know as I said, I would be a supporter about the up lighting that the school is requesting. It sounds as though that is a reasonable request. If that's an amendment, I believe that it could be supported by this commission. Having said all that, again my hat is off to you all. I think you've done a good job for an area that I think is very difficult to deal with and I do think that in 5 years, yeah everybody will look upon this and again it will be a source of pride for the community and people will be very proud of the fact that they live next door to a high school. I just look at all these other areas where neighborhoods have had high schools put in. You talk about property values. That's one of the things that raises property values more than anything. Is the fact that there's a school that's close by and we have access to fields and places for children to go and play. So I just don't know of any high school or school period that's a negative as far as a community and I really can't see any reason to stop any of this. Again, there are issues that need to be worked out. You've raised those today. I think the school understands that they do need to address them. It's in the plan here, as far as looking at things. The fencing. The landscaping. I mean we will hold their feet to the fire on all those issues, but again there is a reasonable standard, you cannot expect them to 41 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 plant a tree that's going to be a mature 10 or 15 year old tree. I mean there is a cost factor in all this and yes, you are paying for it. It is our school. This belongs to the public. So I would also expect them to be good standards of their money. But having said all that, we will make sure that it is pleasing to the neighborhood. You know the standards in the codes are there and you will have to adhere to that so, with that I would accept a motion going forward. Dillon: I would move that the Planning Commission adopt the following four motions. And adopt the attached findings of fact and recommendations. A. The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that City Council approve the Rezoningof the Chanhassen High School site from Agricultural Estate District, A2, and Planned Unit Development, PUD, to Office and Institutional District, OI. B. The Chanhassen Planning Commissionrecommends that the City Council approve the Conditional Use Permit for development within the Bluff Creek Corridor with a Variance to locate the south access drive within the Bluff Creek primary zone, in conformance with the grading plans prepared by Anderson Johnson Associates dated February 2, 2007, subject following to conditions, the following number 1 and 2. And C. The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that City Council approvetheSite Plan with Variancefor a three-story building for a High School campus including an approximately 406,000 square-foot building, athletic fields, concession building, stadium, storage/maintenance buildings and parking lots, with plans prepared by Anderson Johnson Associates, Inc., dated February 2, 2007, subject to the following conditions 1 through 11. And D. The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that City Council approve the Wetland Alteration Permit for the grading and filling of wetlands on the site of the Chanhassen High School, plans prepared by Pinnacle Engineering, dated February 9, 2007, subject to the following conditions 1 through 5. McDonald: Okay, do I have a second? Papke: Before that I'd like to propose a friendly amendment to Commissioner Dillon's motion. That motion C, condition number 3 to be amended to the building façade flood lights shall be allowed during school events and activities and to request staff to update the findings of fact to correspond to that amendment. McDonald: Okay. And then with that I have a question for staff. You gave us a new page with the Park Director's conditions. Should that be part of. Aanenson: Those are recommendations. They're not ordinance. Again we'll pass those on to City Council as a recommendation. I think Mr. Pumper identified that those are bid alternates that they're putting in for the turf. The other one regarding additional parking, they meet the standards. That's certainly they'll look at something for cost effective. And the other one was… Papke: Commissioner Dillon, do you accept my friendly amendment? Dillon: Yes I do. McDonald: And do I have a second on the amendment with the friendly amendment. Larson: Yes. 42 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Dillon moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the Rezoning of the Chanhassen High School site from Agricultural Estate District, A2, and Planned Unit Development, PUD, to Office and Institutional District, OI. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Dillon moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Councilapprove the Conditional Use Permit for development within the Bluff Creek Corridor with a Variance to locate the south access drive within the Bluff Creek primary zone, in conformance with the grading plans prepared by Anderson Johnson Associates, Inc., dated 02-02-07, subject to the following conditions: 1.The construction activities associated with the proposed project shall not conflict with the easement granted to MnDOT for its wetland mitigation project. 2.To mitigate for the impacts to the primary corridor, the applicant shall submit a plan for the restoration of areas adjacent to the Bluff Creek Corridor (including the drainageway along the north side of the substation and the area east of the bus/event entrance) with species consistent with the City’s Bluff Creek Watershed Natural Resources Management Plan.” All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Dillon moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the Site Plan with Variance for a three-story building and up lighting for a High School campus including an approximately 406,000 square-foot building, athletic fields, concession building, stadium, storage/maintenance buildings and parking lots, plans prepared by Anderson Johnson Associates, Inc., dated 02-02-07, subject to the following conditions: 1.The developer shall add benches and tables to take advantage of the gathering areas, plazas and scenic overlooks. Bicycle parking pads and storage racks shall be provided on site. 2.The developer shall include angled visitor parking in the drop-off access west of the building entrance. allowed during school events and activities 3.The building façade flood lights shall be . 4.Pedestrian ramps shall be provided at all curbs where the sidewalks or trails connect. 5.The following mitigation measures shall be implemented by opening day of the school: Construct a traffic signal at the Lyman Boulevard/Lake Hazeltine Drive intersection. ? Modify the existing signal at the Lyman Boulevard/Audubon Road South intersection for ? the addition of a north leg to the intersection. Construct the following turn lanes: ? 43 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 Approach Left Turn Lane Right Turn Lane Southbound Lyman Boulevard at North Bypass lane School Access Northbound Lyman Boulevard at North 200 feet School Access Westbound North School Access at Through lane becomes 300 feet Lyman Boulevard turn lane Southbound Lyman Boulevard at Lake 200 feet Hazeltine Drive Northbound Lyman Boulevard at Lake 200 feet Hazeltine Drive Eastbound Lake Hazeltine Drive at 100 feet Lyman Boulevard Westbound Lake Hazeltine Drive at 300 feet Build Lyman Boulevard through/right Eastbound Lyman Boulevard at Audubon 200 feet Road South Westbound Lyman Boulevard at 200 feet Audubon Road South Northbound Audubon Road South at Build to add through Lyman Boulevard lane Southbound Audubon Road South at 200 feet Build Lyman Boulevard through/right 6.Building Official Conditions: a.The buildings must be protected with automatic fire sprinkler systems. b.The building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of Minnesota. c.Building permits are required for all structures (including, but not limited to, storage buildings, concession stands, bleachers, retaining walls). d.Retaining wall plans must be prepared and signed by a structural engineer licensed in the State of Minnesota. 7.Fire Marshal Conditions: a.A 10-foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e., street lamps, trees, shrubs, bushes, Xcel Energy, Qwest, cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1. 44 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 b.Fire apparatus access roads and water supply for fire protection is required to be installed. Such protection shall be installed and made serviceable prior to and during the time of construction except when approved alternate methods of protection are provided. c.Fire apparatus access roads shall be designed and maintained to support the imposed load of fire apparatus and shall be serviced so as to provide all-weather driving capabilities. Pursuant to Minnesota State Fire Code Section 503.2.3. d.Yellow curbing and “No Parking Fire Lane” signs will be required. Contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for exact location of yellow curbing and locations of signs to be installed. e.No burning permits shall be issued for trees to be removed. Trees and shrubs must either be removed from site or chipped. f.Submit radius turn designs to City Engineer and Chanhassen Fire Marshal for review and approval. Pursuant to Minnesota State Fire Code Section 503.2.4. 8.Forester Conditions: a.Increase plantings for parking lot area in order to meet ordinance requirement of 156 trees. b.Replace Black Hills spruce seedlings with white spruce. c.Existing trees to be preserved shall be protected. Fencing shall be installed around trees prior to grading. d.Understory seedlings shall be located among overstory deciduous trees. e.The applicant shall increase the quantity of seedlings planted in each grouping. f.All deciduous seedlings shall be protected by tree tubes. Tubes shall be monitored and removed at the appropriate time. All tubes shall be fitted with protective bird netting. g.All ash trees shall be replaced by an alternative species. h.The applicant shall meet minimum requirements for buffer yard plantings along the east property line. Native shrubs and vines shall be incorporated into the landscape in addition to trees. i.The columnar Norway maple shall be replaced with a different columnar tree such as Armstrong red maple, Autumn Spire red maple or even an ornamental species. 9.Engineer Conditions: 45 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 a.The applicant must obtain permits from Carver County to construct the accesses to Lyman Boulevard. b.ISD 112 must obtain the necessary easement from the City of Chaska to construct the access through the substation property. c.Spot elevations must be shown between the wetland/wetland mitigation and Lyman Boulevard to ensure that the road is not flooded during the 100-year event. d.Additional ponding is required so that runoff from the entire future width of Lyman Boulevard will be treated in the ponds. e.Hydrology to the wetland/wetland mitigation area north of the Lake Hazeltine access point must be maintained. f.The outlet for Storm Basin 2 should be relocated to prevent short circuiting. g.The development team should reexamine the proposed grades within the infield of softball field 1 to eliminate the low area between second base and the pitcher’s mound. h.Grading operations on adjacent properties must be approved by the property owner. i.Grading within the overhead electric and gas easement near the eastern access point must be approved by the appropriate private utilities. j.Identify all emergency overflow locations and elevations on the final grading plan. k.The final grading plan must show the linework for the storm sewer. l.Pond, drainage and utility easements are required over the ponds and wetlands. m.The developer must adjust the sanitary sewer manhole elevations according to City standard detail plates. n.The trunk sanitary sewer line must be televised before and after construction to determine if the high school construction has damaged the pipe. If the City televises this sanitary sewer before the high school construction mobilized, the developer will only be required to televise the line after construction is complete. o.The school district will be reimbursed $166,424.00 which is the cost difference between the 18-inch trunk and 10-inch lateral watermain. p.Trunk water fees must be paid with the building permit based on the City Water Access Charge in effect at the time the building permit is issued. 46 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 q.The hydrant locations along Lyman Boulevard must be adjusted so that the hydrants do not lie within the high water level of the adjacent ponds. r.Based on the proposed utility plan, an irrigation meter is required. s.The utility plan must show the existing trunk sanitary sewer, existing overhead utilities and existing gas pipelines. t.Mylar and digital as-builts for the pond grading and utilities must be submitted in Carver County coordinates. 10.Water Resources Coordinator Conditions: a.Wetland replacement shall occur in a manner compliant with the project’s Wetland Alteration Permit, Chanhassen City Code and the Minnesota Wetland Conservation Act (MR 8420). b.The project shall comply with the conditions of its Conditional Use Permit for Development within the Bluff Creek Overlay District. c.The Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) including all information required by the NPDES Construction Site Permit shall be located at the job trailer. d.Stable emergency overflows shall be provided for the proposed ponds on site. The emergency overflows shall be clearly labeled on the plan and a detail is needed. The emergency overflows can be stabilized with a turf re-enforcement mat or fabric and riprap. e.The plan shall include detailed specifications for temporary stabilization of the site. The timing of stabilization will vary depending upon slope and if it is a concentrated flow area. The rate of mulch application shall also be included on the plans (2 tons per acre, disc anchored). f.All riprap/fabric at the flared end section shall be installed within 24 hours of flared end section installation. g.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to the following table of slopes and time frames: Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area 10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.) Flatter than 10:1 21 days 47 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man made systems that discharge to a surface water. h.Silt fence that is not placed on the contour shall have J-Hooks or rock every 50 to 75 feet. i.Temporary sediment basins shall be constructed prior to disturbing upslope areas. The areas of temporary sediment basins shall be labeled on the plan. A temporary and/or permanent sediment pond shall be constructed at the locations of the outlets for Flared End Sections (FES) 7 and 8. This shall be installed prior to grading and then used as a temporary sediment pond prior to discharging the runoff into the wetland. If it is used as a temporary pond, it should stay in place until all turf is established. Temporary outlet structures (e.g., a perforated riser and rock cone) shall be provided for the ponds; details should be provided. j.Contractors and their subcontractors shall receive approval of proposed dewatering methods from the City’s project inspector or erosion and sediment control inspector prior to conducting any and all dewatering on-site. k.Wimco inlet controls or similar shall be used to protect all storm sewer inlets. l.The plans shall be revised to include Chanhassen’s standard details for erosion and sediment control (i.e., Details 3102, 3104, 3107, 3108, 3109, 5300, 5301, 5302, 5302A). m.The plans shall be revised to include a concrete washout area. n.Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as-needed. o.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (i.e., Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) and comply with their conditions of approval. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Dillon moved, Larson seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that City Council approve the Wetland Alteration Permit for the grading and filling of wetlands on the site of the Chanhassen High School, plans prepared by Pinnacle Engineering, dated February 9, 2007, subject to the following conditions: 1.A wetland buffer 16.5 to 20 feet in width (with a minimum average of 16.5 feet) shall be maintained around all Ag/Urban wetlands. All wetlands and wetland buffer areas shall be protected by silt fence during grading. Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the City’s wetland ordinance. The applicant shall install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of City staff, before construction begins and shall pay 48 Planning Commission Meeting - March 6, 2007 the City $20 per sign. All structures shall maintain a setback of at least 40 feet from the wetland buffer edge. The wetland buffer setback shall be shown on the plans. 2.Wetland replacement shall occur in a manner consistent with Chanhassen City Code and the Minnesota Wetland Conservation Act (MR 8420). 3.The applicant shall provide additional information as to how the vegetative communities and hydrology for Wetlands C and D will be re-established. 4.A five-year wetland replacement monitoring plan shall be submitted. The replacement monitoring plan shall include a detailed management plan for invasive non-native species, particularly purple loosestrife and reed canary grass. The plans shall show fixed photo monitoring points for the replacement wetland. The applicant shall provide proof of recording of a Declaration of Restrictions and Covenants for Replacement Wetland. 5.The applicant shall submit a letter of credit equal to 110% of the cost of the wetland creation (including grading and seeding) to ensure the design standards for the replacement wetland are met. The letter of credit shall be effective for no less than five years from the date of final approval. The applicant shall submit a cost estimate for wetland creation (including grading and seeding) so the City can calculate the amount of the wetland creation letter of credit.” All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Dillon moved, Papke seconded to note the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated January 16, 2007 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Chairman McDonald adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 9:30 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 49