PC 2002 08 06CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
AUGUST 6, 2002
Vice Chair Sidney called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: LuAnn Sidney, Bruce Feik, Steve Lillehaug, Uli Sacchet and Rich
Slagle. Alison Blackowiak arrived during discussion of item 3, Town & Country Homes.
MEMBERS ABSENT: Craig Claybaugh
STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Sharmin A1-Jaff,
Senior Planner; Matt Saam, Assistant City Engineer; and Jason Angell, Planner
PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS:
Deb Kind
Deb Lloyd
Janet & Jerry Paulsen
2351 Lukewood
7302 Laredo Drive
7305 Laredo Drive
PUBLIC HEARING:
REQUEST FOR PRELIMNARY PLAT APPROVAL TO SUBDIVIDE 14.027 ACRES
INTO ONE LOT AND ONE OUTLOT TO CREATE HALLA MARYANNE ADDITION.
THE SITE IS CURRENTLY ZONED AGRICULTURAL ESTATE DISTRICT AND IS
LOCATED NORTH OF CREEKWOOD DRIVE AND WEST OF STATE HIGHWAY 10la
DON HALLA.
PublicPresent:
Name
Address
Don Halla
Maryanne White
6601 Mohawk Trail, Edina
6601 Mohawk Trail, Edina
Sharmin AI-Jaff presented the staff report on this item.
Sidney: Questions of staff. Yes.
Slagle: Just one to you Madam Chair, as a point of clarification. I need to abstain from this due
to the fact that the participants are clients of mine so I'm going to sit down.
Sidney: Thank you. Yes.
Sacchet: Quick question of staff. One thing I wasn't clear about is on the second page of the
staff report. It talks about the subdivision being vacated. Does that also apply to the piece, there
are two pieces shaded on the map. Does it also apply, I was just curious, does it also apply to that
piece to the northeast?
A1-Jaff: Yes.
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Sacchet: So both have been vacated.
A1-Jaff: Correct.
Sacchet: But we're only dealing with the one on the southwest comer?
A1-Jaff: That's correct.
Sacchet: Okay. And then I had one more question of staff. Condition 4 states that there will be a
development contract, that no eligibility remains what you just explained was the 10 acre
business. Until such time urban services are available, and the city reguides the site residential
low density. Is that already a given that it will be low density? This does not imply a
commitment that it will be, okay.
A1-Jaff: No.
Sacchet: Just want to clarify that, okay. That's all my questions, thank you.
Aanenson: Could I just add to that? In the 2020 land use plan, it is guided low density.
Sacchet: That's the guidance, okay.
Aanenson: That is the guiding so if you were to change and make it something else, it would
require a land use amendment and approval from the Met Council. Just for clarification.
Sacchet: So the overall vision is that it will be low density?
Aanenson: Correct.
Sacchet: I mean it's not a commitment, but it's the vision. I mean that's what I'm trying to
weigh a little bit where we stand because we express it here in this condition...
Aanenson: That is the vision that that area be low density residential.
Sacchet: Okay, thank you.
Feik: No questions.
Lillehaug: No questions.
Sidney: I guess I will only comment that I agree with the staff's interpretation that it's consistent
with the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinances. Okay, this is a public hearing. Anyone
wishing to address the Planning Commission please come forward. State your name and address
for the record. Oh I'm sorry, applicant first. Yes.
Don Halla: Hi. I'm Don Halla. There was a question that came up today about the total number
of trees on the lot being insufficient. I went out and counted them, which I never have done
before, and there's 124 of them, which actually means the trees are located on, it's a little less
square footage than when I thought I took 2 acres would be 27 foot on center. So we're about as
dense as you'd want a full grown tree to be. The only place that's really been opened up is a little
area that a couple trees were moved from, but different spot on the site so Maryanne could put a
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
garden there. Maryanne is my daughter and I'm just gifting her the property is basically what it
is. And if you'd like to see, if anybody wants to see the density of the trees, I took some pictures
today so.
Sidney: Sure, if you have them.
Don Halla: In addition, I believe we have already paid all the fees that are outlined to be paid.
They've been paid previously when we did a subdivision so I believe there's credits there that
will be checked on and worked out.
A1-Jaff: Earlier today the applicant and myself spoke regarding this item. Both engineering, as
well as Lori Haak who is our Water Resource Coordinator, are researching that portion of it. And
if the fees have been paid, then that condition will be removed.
Don Halla: Any questions anybody has of me?
Sidney: I don't think so.
Don Halla: Thank you.
Sidney: Okay, thanks. Now, we'll open up the public hearing. Anyone wishing to address the
Planning Commission on this issue? Please come forward, state your name and address. Seeing
none I'll close the public hearing. Commissioners, comments about this application.
Feik: Seems pretty straight forward to me. I see no problems.
Sacchet: Ditto.
Sidney: Ditto.
Lillehaug: Same.
Sidney: I guess the one thing we should note that staff has recommending waiving the tree
replacement.
A1-Jaff: That's correct. At this time and when the outlot is platted in the future, they will be
required to meet ordinance requirements as far as number of trees on the site.
Sidney: Okay.
Sacchet: That appears reasonable. Now I have one question though Madam Chair, if I may.
What did you recommend about this thing with the fees? Are we leaving this condition on right
now with the stipulation that it will be removed once you verify that the fees have been paid?
A1-Jaff: That's correct.
Sacchet: Okay. And would it make sense in condition 4 to say this, where we're talking about
the city reguiding this site residential low density, if you refer to as planned in the 2020 vision for
the city or is that overkill?
A1-Jaff: How about we leave it as is.
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Sacchet: That we leave it as is?
A1-Jaff: Yes.
Sacchet: Alright. I'm willing to go along with that.
Sidney: Okay, how about a motion?
Feik: I'll make a motion. Planning Commission recommends approval of the preliminary plat
request 02-11 SUB to subdivide a 14.027 acre parcel into 1.97 acre lot and a 12.05 acre outlot as
shown on plans dated received July 3, 2002, subject to the following conditions 1 through 10.
Sacchet: Second.
Feik moved, Sacchet seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the
preliminary plat request (02-11 SUB) to subdivide a 14.027 acre parcel into a 1.97 acre lot
and a 12.05 acre outlot as shown on the plans dated received July 3, 2002, subject to the
following conditions:
All upland areas disturbed as a result of construction activities shall be immediately
restored with seed and disc-mulched, covered with a wood-fiber blanket or sodded within
two weeks of completion of each activity in accordance with the City's Best Management
Practice Handbook.
Based on the proposed developed area of approximately 1.97 acres, the water quality fees
associated with this project are $1,576; the water quantity fees are approximately $3,901.
The applicant will be credited for water quality where NURP basins are provided to treat
runoff from the site. This will be determined upon review of the ponding and storm
sewer calculations. At this time the estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at
the time of final plat recording, is $5,477.
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), and comply with their conditions of approval.
The applicant shall enter into a development contract with the City establishing that no
building eligibility remains for the 12.05 acre parcel until such time urban services are
available and the city reguides the site to Residential Low Density.
5. The applicant shall pay the City GIS fees according to city ordinance.
6. Show the width of the existing right-of-way on Highway 101 and Creekwood Drive.
7. Add a legend to the plan that defines the different line types.
8. Show the proposed grading that is planned for Lot 1.
The applicant must obtain an encroachment agreement for the wire fence in the front yard
easement or move the fence outside of the easement.
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
10.
The replacement-planting requirement shall be waived. When the outlot is subdivided,
then proper tree preservation requirements can be applied.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Rich Slagle
abstained due to a conflict of interest.
PUBLIC HEARING:
CONSIDER THE REQUEST FOR A SETBACK VARIANCE FOR THE
RECONSTRUCTION OF A DETACHED GARAGE ON A LOT OF RECORD ZONED
RESIDENTIAL SINGLE FAMILY AND LOCATED AT 6681 HORSESHOE CURVE~
JEFF & JUDY KVILHAUG.
Public Present:
Name
Address
Brian Nowak 1735 Perkins Lane, Maple Plain
Judi & Jeff Kvilhaug 6681 Horseshoe Curve
Jason Angell presented the staff report on this item.
Sidney: Questions of staff? Okay.
Sacchet: On page 2, I think there must be an error in the first paragraph in background it talks
about Laredo Drive and Chan View Road. That must, that's not applicable here.
Angell: No.
Sacchet: So I want to make sure I wasn't missing something.
Angell: No, that's a typo.
Sacchet: It seemed to be in a different neighborhood. Other than that I don't have any questions.
Thank you.
Sidney: Okay, nobody else?
Angell: And the applicant and their architect are here also.
Sidney: Okay. Well then I'll remember them this time. Okay, if the applicant would like to
come forward and/or their designee and make a presentation. Please state your name and address
for the record.
Judi Kvilhaug: I'm Judi Kvilhaug and I live at 6681 Horseshoe Curve.
Jeff Kvilhaug: Jeff Kvilhaug, same residence. 6681 Horseshoe Curve.
Brian Nowak: Brian Nowak, 1735 Perkins Lane in Maple Plain.
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Sidney: Okay, any questions for the applicant? Do you have any comments about the staff's
recommendations?
Brian Nowak: I think the staff has done a good job of summarizing what the concerns were.
Safety was the first major concern. There were a lot of design considerations that went into the
siting of the garage and the renovation of the house. We really didn't get into those issues in the
application but that was part of, a major part of my client's concern is that it fit into the
neighborhood. That it look nice by scale as well as permit a safety...
Sidney: I see by the dimensions of the lot there really isn't a lot of leeway in terms of what you
can do in placing a garage.
Brian Nowak: Right. And we're dealing with an existing house that there had been work done
about 8, 5 years ago? 5 years ago. Some major renovations so we couldn't change like windows
on the first floor in the kitchen would look out onto the street. They have small children and they
have a concern about being able to observe them.
Sidney: Well an attached garage is out of the question.
Brian Nowak: Yeah, given there's an 11 foot fall between the street and the house, an attachment
would have been impractical.
Sidney: Okay. Yes.
Sacchet: One question. There are two sizeable oaks on the south side, and it's my understanding
that one of them can be saved reasonably and the other, which is actually the less nice one will
have to make room. Could you just elaborate on that briefly?
Brian Nowak: Sure, that's the intent is that the one that would be closest to where the garage is
being moved will be taken down and the other one protected and saved.
Sacchet: You won't have to dig down there for foundation or anything like that?
Brian Nowak: Well we'll have to dig down away from it but we don't, given the terrain that is
there now and the pavement on it, we're hoping by taking the pavement off of the existing roof
structure, getting rid of one tree, that the remaining tree will have a much better chance of
survival.
Sacchet: So you're not really going further than the current pavement is, in other words.
Brian Nowak: Oh no.
Sacchet: Okay. That's important because chances are there's not that much roots under the
pavement.
Brian Nowak: That's right. That's what we were thinking. Because that pavement has been
there in recent history. So we're actually creating. This is the existing pavement comes right to
the trees and then here, the building will be here but we're taking out a lot of pavement in this
area.
Sacchet: So the pavement will actually be further away from the trees than it is even now.
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Brian Nowak: Yeah.
Sacchet: Okay. Well that's.
Brian Nowak: You know the root structure is not just the structure but it's kind of the heat the
pavement creates on the roots and the ability to get water into it there.
Sacchet: Right, okay. Good. That's a good answer.
Sidney: Okay, anybody else?
Lillehaug: I do have a question. I met with the applicant today and I asked the question, there is
obviously room where the garage could be shifted. The proposed garage could be shifted to the
north to allow a 10 foot setback on that south property line, and my question to you is, could you
explain why you wouldn't want to do that. Because you could allow for a 10 foot setback on both
sides of the garage.
Judi Kvilhaug: That question was asked of me today and my answer was, basically we have 50
feet to work with, 26 of which are garage itself leaving 24 feet of green space. So by moving the
garage over 5 feet from the lot line and asking for a 5 foot variance, that allows for number one,
well. Not specifically in this order but in my opinion in this order. Number one, safety for me. I
can see the street and what's going on in the street. And number two, it allows for better green
space as you drive into the neighborhood. It just, it allows for a better view of the house from the
street. For neighbors. Aesthetically it's more pleasing. If we moved that garage into the center
of the space it would be a garage with a house somewhere behind it. Since we do have that 11
foot grade so you wouldn't see much of the house that way. And it really would not allow me to
see the street.
Jeff Kvilhaug: The lot also does slope from the northern comer to the southern edge and so by
keeping it further to the south edge it minimizes the drop as much as possible. The differential
between the floor of the garage and the house. So it just seems to be the proper site for it.
Brian Nowak: We also, because of that what Jeff is saying, we could reduce any need for a
retaining on that side so we are eliminating some hard cover issues there.
Judi Kvilhaug: I mean we worked with the drainage for the 11 years that we've been there and it
naturally drains now quite well to the north side, and we really need to leave that slope as it
exists, and you saw that today. That's probably the largest pad that we have on the street side of
the yard.
Lillehaug: Okay, thank you.
Sidney: Okay, thank you.
Judi Kvilhaug: Thank you.
Jeff Kvilhaug: Thank you.
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Sidney: Okay, this is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to address the Planning Commission on
this issue, please come forward. State your name and address. Seeing none I'll close the public
hearing.
Angell: Madam Chair ifI may.
Sidney: Yes.
Angell: Also I have received several calls from residents in the area and none of them expressed
any disbelief in the project. They've all seen the plans. They all agree and as long as engineering
staff works with them on drainage issues, they see no problem with the proposal.
Sidney: Okay. Commissioners, comments. I'll look this way first.
Lillehaug: Okay. I fully support the 16 foot variance on the front yard. It's safer and it definitely
reduces the non-conformity. I'm not 100 percent, totally sold on the 5 foot variance for the side
yard setback. Generally for the main reason is, it could, the garage could be set in the center of
the lot, not requiring this variance. I generally don't like to support shifting a non-conformance
from one property line to the opposite side and then encumbering the other property. Is the
applicant's request reasonable? It is. I also think that it's reasonable to move the proposed
garage northerly 5 foot. By doing this I think it would also allow that second oak to survive and
not be cut down. For this I'm 50/50 on supporting this variance.
Sidney: Okay.
Sacchet: Well I do definitely think there is a hardship with being so close to the road. That
seems very obvious. I'm generally in favor of this variance but also in favor of doing everything
possible to save the trees. Now in terms of those trees, the one that's closer to the garage is really
not as nice a tree. It's at an angle. It's lop-sided so really the second one that's further away,
that's the one that I primarily think needs effort to be preserved because that's, that one's straight
and bigger. Under the circumstances I would be inclined to give the applicant the solution they
have because it's a difficult place to fit in and to have the drainage work and everything. I don't
think that oak that is closer is spectacular enough to warrant forcing that to be less set back.
That's my comments.
Feik: I generally support as shown. I drove by the parcel as well. There is a garage on the
adjacent property next to it, which is very close to the lot line as well. For a different reason I
support quite frankly the 5 foot variance in that it clusters those garages a little bit together and it
actually opens up some additional space that otherwise wouldn't be there. So I support it as is.
Slagle: I think that I support the front yard setback. I, along with Steve, have some concerns
about the ability to place it into a conforming situation, because we could with that side setback.
And even though the 5 foot is more than the current 2 ½ feet, I'm not, what's the word. I'm not
persuaded yet that we shouldn't allow for it to be moved northward 5 feet and then set within the
conformities because we will see more of these and I think as we try and do each of these every
other week, we run into situations where we try and understand why we are suggesting things.
And I would like to see us come up with that conforming principle if you will, and we have the
opportunity here. So I'm in favor of it with the 5 foot variance being eliminated.
Sidney: Okay. My comments. I agree with staff's interpretation. We're decreasing a non-
conformity, which I think is the major consideration here. We are creating new setbacks.
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
However, I think as the applicant has discussed, we're talking about some drainage issues. Also
issues with placement of a new garage in terms of how it relates to the slope on the lot and I think
that's an important issue. I don't really see a problem with the request for the two different
setbacks and would be in favor of the application as it is presented tonight. Any other comments?
Okay. Let's see where we go. And I'll need help with staff when we have a vote. Anyone brave
enough?
Sacchet: I make the motion that the Planning Commission approves Variance 02-10 for a 16 foot
variance from the 30 foot front setback, and a 5 foot variance from the 10 foot side yard setback.
And to allow the hard cover surface to cover 3,256 square feet, 29 percent of the property, for the
construction of a detached garage, including a home addition with the following conditions 1
through 4.
Sidney: Okay, we have a motion.
Feik: I'll second.
Sacchet moved, Feik seconded that the Planning Commission approves Variance #02-10 for
a 16 foot variance from the 30 foot front yard setback, a 5 foot variance to the 10 foot side
yard setback, and to allow the hard cover surface to cover 3,256 (29%) of the property for
the construction of a detached garage including a home addition, with the following
conditions:
The applicant will submit a survey that shows the elevation at the edge of the bituminous
and a drainage swale between the garage and the residence.
2. A building permit must be obtained before beginning any construction.
3. Contact the building department for demolition permit requirements.
4. The setback must be measured from the eave to the property lines.
All voted in favor, except Lillehaug and Slagle who opposed. The motion carried with a
vote of 3 to 2.
Sidney: Okay, help staff.
A1-Jaff: It's a recommendation that goes to the City Council.
Sidney: Okay. So in this case the motion does not carry. Does carry but.
A1-Jaff: It carries as a recommendation.., because the majority approved it but in order for it to
pass without going to the City Council you need ~ of the vote.
Sidney: And we haven't met that condition, okay. So let's explain again for the applicant please.
And for everybody.
A1-Jaff: It goes as a recommendation of approval to the City Council.
Sidney: Okay, and we haven't been able to approve it tonight.
Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
A1-Jaff: No.
Sidney: Because it didn't meet the requirement.
A1-Jaff: The ~ vote requirement.
Sidney: Okay. So in this case it goes automatically.
A1-Jaff: To the City Council.
Sidney: To the City Council and will you be working with the applicant on that?
have said Jason. I'm sorry.
Angell: Yes.
Sidney: Okay, thank you very much.
Oop, I should
PUBLIC HEARING:
CONSIDER REQUEST FOR A CONCEPTUAL PUD OF 88.5 ACRES OF PROPERTY
FOR 540 RESIDENTIAL UNITS ON PROPERTY CURRENTLY ZONED A2~
AGRICULTURAL ESTATE AND LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF AUDUBON
ROAD~ SOUTH OF LYMAN BOULEVARD~ AND NORTH OF PIONEER TRAIL. THE
CONCEPT REVIEW PURPOSE IS TO GIVE CLEAR DIRECTION FOR THE NEXT
LEVEL OF REVIEW~ TOWN & COUNTRY HOMES.
Public Present:
Name Address
John Hanna
Gil & Margaret
Susan Lundgren
Mitch & Jill Anderson 1853
Char Jeurissen 9715
Mark & Jen Johnson 9715
Kara Strazzanti 2901
Aline Stewart 2848
Mary Jo Hansen 2890
Mark Johnson 2901
Gayle & Lois Degler 1630
1322 Alton Street, St. Paul
24760 Cedar Point Road, New Prague
2855 Timberview Trail, Chaska
Timberview Trail, Chaska
Audubon Road
Audubon Road
Forest Ridge, Chaska
Timberview Trail, Chaska
Forest Ridge, Chaska
Butternut Drive, Chaska
Lyman Boulevard
Kate Aanenson presented the staff report on this item.
Sidney: I think a couple maybe large picture questions. Now let's see, you're not really talking
about developments until 2005. Why are we considering a concept plan at this stage? And aren't
we more in kind of the open discussion phase where we might just informally talk with the
applicant? Why a concept plan?
Aanenson: Good question. This is the process that's used throughout, well the City has used
historically. We have one applicant that goes forward that triggers the rest of the development
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
because the City's not going to pursue any action unless there's somebody that's willing to go
forward because at that point we have to do a feasibility study, which costs us or the developer so
we need to start working on that. When 2005 comes to keep, maintain the land supply and the
land prices, we need to be starting to do this work now so we're not sitting with a 2 year gap with
no available lot inventory. It takes a long time to put all these issues to rest and a lot of
discussion. I think that's what the concept plan is now, to have some sort of idea as to what, and
to bring the people together and say there's something real happening and get everybody going in
the same direction. So there has to be a project to make that happen.
Sidney: Okay. And then this is the benchmark which initiates it.
Aanenson: Correct. And it is consistent with the comprehensive plan, which is the framework
that they're following.
Sidney: Okay. And a couple other questions. Well one question here. I was looking in the list
of people who were notified. Were folks in Autumn Woods in Chaska notified?
Aanenson: I'd have to double check the list. We went beyond for the 500 feet and notified all
the people that were further than 500 feet that were in the original study area.
Sidney: And how about the School District 1127 Were they notified?
Aanenson: Yes, they're aware of it. Yes, I've talked to Bev Stofferahn. And I did get a letter
which I handed out from a gentleman that has a little sliver piece. He also owns a piece across
the street. I gave you a copy of that letter. And I concur with a couple of his points. That he
doesn't want to be left as an island so again, that's part of why we do the area wide to include all
the properties because they all have to work together when you're talking about systems, sewer,
water, roads.
Sidney: Okay. Commissioners. Should I look this way?
Lillehaug: Sure. I guess I have a big picture question. Did you indicate that part of the AUAR, a
traffic study would be required?
Aanenson: Yes.
Lillehaug: Okay. And then when doing this traffic study, how will this traffic study and the 212
traffic study, how they will be coordinated and linked together?
Aanenson: In the comprehensive plan we did a no build and build 212, and that may cause some
implications looking at the phasing. How far east we can go with the traffic. How much can be
handled along Lyman or Audubon if 212 does not go forward. Again the comprehensive plan did
contemplate a build/no build. Powers is also a system related to the 212, so that's something that
we'll be looking at.
Lillehaug: Okay. And then one real simple, quick question. We got a letter here from Charles
Wagner.
Aanenson: Yeah, that's the one I was just talking about.
Lillehaug: Where's his property?
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Aanenson: It's a little sliver... He also owns property across the street. And I concur with his
comment on that. You know being included in it again.
Lillehaug: Okay.
Feik: Questions? MUSA needs to be brought into the site. From which direction would that be
brought?
Aanenson: Right now we have a lift station on the Degler property that's serving the upper Bluff.
Feik: Regardless of the name, can you show me where it is and also for the other people who
might not know the name.
Aanenson: Right here.
Feik: Okay.
Aanenson: And that is the sewer. That sewer's serving, going north. Going all the way up to
Westwood Church up on 41. That's the upper part of it. That sewer will provide for this whole
area.
Feik: So bringing that sewer line into the south to this property, that's going to stimulate
development down in the surrounding properties.
Aanenson: That's correct. That's why we met with all these property owners back in June.
Feik: By this property going to residential, how do you believe that might affect the guiding of
the properties adjacent to it in that most of it was guided to be commercial or park. Would you
expect some of that guiding to be changed? I'm guessing, since this isn't the next sort of, we're
sort of leap frogging a couple of parcels here and I guess my point is, if by doing this, how is that
going to affect in your mind the development, the style, the timing and everything else of the
parcels to the north and the east?
Aanenson: Good question. We had that similar situation on Highway 5 where you've got the
intersection of 5 and 41 happening before everything in the middle is happening, and that
situation similarly they petitioned. This project would require a petition from the City Council.
That was another thing we brought up with that meeting on the 26th. They have to, the City has to
accept the petition to go forward with services and again, that's why you do the concept review.
To see if there's something to go forward. If the council's not going to pursue that because they
feel like they don't want to force development, then this project wouldn't go forward as part of
kind of wrapping this together.
Feik: Okay. And then dovetailing back to that.
Aanenson: The land use?
Feik: Yes. The land use on the northern portion of this property, which is the overlay district and
the adjacent bluff situation to the west of that. My question is, has Park and Rec seen this and do
they have an input regarding this parcel? How it could better be used in access.
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Aanenson: They're looking at a park in this larger super area. When I say the super area, I'm
talking about the whole 2005. Maybe not necessarily this piece, but something adjacent to it. In
1998 when we put this plan together, looking at the Bluff Creek overlay, there was a large piece
of environmental property that we're trying to save that's got a lot of trees and wetlands between
those two, so there is a natural break. That's why we gave it either option, because we felt there
was enough transition through topography and natural features that allowed for a natural break so
they still could go independently. If one went industrial, one could go multi family. We have
that similar situations in other parts of the city.
Feik: And having a smaller enclave of industrial surrounded by residential potentially on all
sides?
Aanenson: It's industrial across the street in Chaska too. That was one of the reasons why we
gave it too.
Feik: And there's wetland north of Lyman.
Aanenson: Correct, yes. There's industrial across the street in Chanhassen too, to the north side,
which is kind of making that transition and we felt like the natural feature in there made a good
break. That's the recommendation that we came up with in 1998.
Feik: Thank you.
Slagle: A couple questions Kate. First of all across the street in Chaska, I know that on
Lakeview Drive there is commercial. Maximum Graphics, what not. Going south are
townhomes. Then there's a farm. And what is that farmland zoned in Chaska?
Aanenson: That's Mr. Wagner's. I'm not sure he said in here. I know the piece to the north is
industrial.
Slagle: Okay, but the one in Chaska. Across the street.
Aanenson: I can't speak comfortably on that one.
Slagle: Okay, I'd like to know that at some point if we could.
Aanenson: Sure.
Slagle: Just to again try to balance what that area might look like. There's been some comments
about forcing growth or encouraging growth or what not. Can I just ask a simple question why?
I mean as an example Westwood, that was approved and that lot that's in essence land locked,
and they've come and said hey, we want to develop and from last I heard it didn't, the petition
and what not didn't go through. So why would we, I'm just throwing this out for discussion.
Why would we want to encourage growth in an area that's perhaps even further away from?
Aanenson: Nobody's saying that piece can't develop. What we're saying is they have to provide
municipal services. Sewer and water. They don't want to have a wider road or bring sewer and
water down. That's the issue. It needs municipal services, and a wider road.
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Slagle: Okay. Then let me ask this in a different way. What would be the down side to not
doing anything with this property for 2-3 years? As far as the MUSA. Not expanding it.
Waiting 3 years and then proceeding with sort of the plans that we're doing now.
Aanenson: Waiting 3 years?
Slagle: I mean I'm just asking.
Aanenson: That'd be like 3 more years before it was to develop. Because it's going to take a
couple years.
Slagle: Okay. And again I'm just trying to think as a citizen who might not see all these
meetings and understand sometimes what we do. But there will be costs associated with this
development. City money. If you're talking multi family homes. Lots of kids. Burden on the
schools.
Aanenson: Right. I think we gave a comparison as opposed to industrial. As opposed to single
family.
Slagle: Correct. Correct, and so I'm just wondering because some of these people are here,
residents might be wondering why we're sort of proceeding with this particular idea of multi
family homes. I mean this developer and you could be in front of us saying we're going to
develop a.
Aanenson: An industrial park.
Slagle: Or an 80 to 100 unit single family. We want you to change the land use and so forth.
And I understand because of affordable living and what not, that's sort of what the staff is
leaning.
Aanenson: No. No. It has nothing to do with the affordable living. You know we looked at
overall thresholds of land and what's around it and what would be the appropriate. You know I
put that in there for some of the goals when we're trying to look at housing type. You look at
what's around that area. Someone could come in and ask for, to change it to lower density.
Slagle: Okay. So it's your opinion that we have not, as a city or staff said to the builder here's
what we'd like to see, and that'd be multi family homes.
Aanenson: Well in 1998 we made the decision, the council approved that plan for medium
density. That's what they paid that price for.
Slagle: I understand.
Aanenson: So if that was to go away, then someone will sit there long enough until the economy
of scale works out to pay for that. For industrial.
Slagle: Okay. So I just want to be clear. A builder could have come to us and said, we're
buying this property and we want to develop into lower density housing. Obviously that's going
to require a change. They could have done it?
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Aanenson: Sure. They could have come in and asked for apartments. They could have come in
and asked for a Wal-Mart. They could have asked for a lot of things, sure.
Slagle: Okay. I just want to make sure I understand. Okay. That's it for right now.
Aanenson: Just to be clear, we would have said it was inconsistent and probably said that we
would recommend against it because it's inconsistent or if they would come in and ask for
commercial or something like that.
Feik: May I follow up on one of Rich's quick questions? When you said, he asked you as,
respect to bringing these services into the site. Would the services be brought from Lyman to this
site at the sole cost of the developer?
Aanenson: That's generally what happens, correct. A feasibility study is done and the costs are
attributed to the development.
Feik: So it's bisected the parcel to the north. Ultimately the parcel to the north is going to benefit
from that. Does that parcel to the north then, how do they end up paying for that?
Aanenson: Right. There's a feasibility hearing that's done and a...
Saam: If I could just add something Bruce.
Feik: Yes.
Saam: Typically what happens, and of course it's up to the council but typically if the property to
the north didn't develop, they'd maybe be assessed one unit and then the rest of the assessments
would wait until that property is developed or sit on the tax rolls. That's typically what happens,
but anything can happen. So I don't want to say that's what's going to happen, but that's usually
what happens. Like on Highway 5.
Feik: I would just hate to see a farmer assessed for services that they don't want for a number of
years.
Sacchet: I've got a few quick questions, but I want to clarify something. One part of the
discussion here seems to circle around why we're looking at this 3 year ahead of time, and I want
to be really clear about this. We are, the way I read the report, I come away with the impression
that we're not looking at developing this before 2005.
Aanenson: That's correct.
Sacchet: We're looking at the process of going through all these steps, the environmental study,
what have you, to take up this time. So we're not accelerating the development from when it's
actually appropriate.
Aanenson: That's correct.
Sacchet: According to the time table of the MUSA line and all that, correct?
Aanenson: Correct.
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Sacchet: Now in terms of the AUAR, the area wide environmental study, you pointed out some
areas that you want them to focus on. The facilities. The utilities. The environment. The traffic.
So we can actually, we can request specific areas to be focused on at that point and look at it area
wide, is that how that works?
Aanenson: Yeah. I put in here specifically what's in the statutes of what they can, but also we
can ask because we'll be the regulatory governmental unit, which means we're the body that
would review all that. So that's, that would come back. That hearing would come back before
the Planning Commission and the City Council so if there's other things that you wanted them to
look at.
Sacchet: We are free to actually request specific things.
Aanenson: Correct.
Sacchet: Now in terms of the school, we're in the process of looking at where it could possibly
be a school. I mean there's not even a decision that there will be a school, another high school,
but we're looking at possible sites. There is no conflict that this site would possibly be a
consideration?
Aanenson: They're aware of those discussions. The school board is aware of this project. I
mean they have to work independently.
Sacchet: So it would be up to the school board to speak up about that, if there would be a concern
about that. Okay. In terms of the preservation, the Bluff Creek watershed management plan is
quoted in the staff report with those 3 wonderful goals, to preserve and manage the high quality
wetland and so forth. Restore... ecosystems. Recreate natural links and so forth. These type of
things, could they be part of the conditions we put on this development?
Aanenson: Absolutely. I think as far as the environmental, what they do a tree survey. And I
think that's one of the things that we put in there too. That they come back and how are they
going to integrate this plan into the overall goals of the Bluff Creek Overlay District. Are they
meeting those and how.
Sacchet: Now, the staff report also makes a comment that the boundaries of the primary,
secondary Bluff Creek district would need to be field verified by staff. So that's just to fine tune
where exactly the sensitive area starts or, could you elaborate a little on that please.
Aanenson: Yeah. We had some concurrence on some of the features when we walked the site
but that's something again with, at the concept level without expending those dollars but all the
wetlands would have to be delineated. Again, in looking at the area wide review, we're not going
to make the adjoining properties until they're ready to develop but we need some, what we like to
see with doing the area wide, is how does that corridor work through all the properties. Kind of
looking again at the holistic approach instead of just specifically this one. I mean obviously
they'll have to do the tree inventory and the wetland delineation but again stepping back and
looking at the overall creek. As you recall when we put that together we originally looked at, and
with the park referendums, could we accomplish buying all the property within that primary
corridor, and we decided we just couldn't do it. So the tool that we came up with was the density
transfer and that we would take it on a piece by piece basis. But with doing the area wide we can
kind of look at that big picture between the two segments.
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Sacchet: Now the staff report makes a very strong statement that the current proposal protects all
the environmentally important areas. And judging by when you put before the map up with the
Bluff Creek primary delineation, it appears that actually all this development is not, it doesn't
touch into the primary anywhere. As a matter of fact, the way I read it, and I just want to make
sure I'm clear about this, that the two preserved areas, the one to the north and to the south, are
the areas that are in the primary.
Aanenson: Again, the primary zone has to be field checked. I mean that's...
Sacchet: Needs to be verified.
Aanenson: Right. And we did.., and we're in pretty close concurrence of those features that are
out there. And enhancing some of those. Whether there's some erosion or some...
Sacchet: And we're considering the northern part more sensitive where you would want it
untouched.
Aanenson: It's beautiful.
Sacchet: And the southern piece is, it would lend itself more towards trails?
Aanenson: It's a nice stand of trees. It creates a nice buffer, correct.
Sacchet: So the part that's being developed is really the flat part.
Aanenson: The farm part.
Sacchet: And it's not the tree part.
Aanenson: Correct. It's the farmed.
Sacchet: I mean on the aerial it actually comes out pretty crisp that the area that's to be
developed is not, doesn't have tree cover and it's also pretty flat, is that a fair statement?
Aanenson: It does rise as you go towards Audubon. Again that's what Mr. Wagner was
concerned too that it's falling. The development...
Sacchet: There's a little bit of slope, okay. The housing plan, now this sketch in from of us
outlines a little bit what would be, I guess there's 3 different areas or types of housing. So to
make a housing plan we'll go to further detail and analyze...
Aanenson: Right, we're asking that it come with you. If you have specific ideas, you know to
give, to lead them in direction. Specific types of products or lot sizes, whatever, that's what
we're recommending is they come back with a plan that's...
Sacchet: In that context I would like Kate, I would like to ask you, there's a table on page 11 of
the staff report that outlines the city index, benchmark and the goal for affordability life cycle and
density. If you could just explain a little bit what these columns and rows are. City index,
benchmark. What are we benchmarking? What does it mean city index? What does it mean
affordable or life cycle? To make it really sure, and then the overall average kind of perplex me
too on the bottom of that table. If you could explain that a little bit, I think that'd be worthwhile.
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Aanenson: This is the Livable Communities Act. Even if all the rest of this area was to come in
multi-family, the city will always be 60 percent single family detached housing. That's always
going to be our predominant land use, and that was one of the decisions that went into when we
said we want to do is preserve these natural, instead of doing the larger lot. If we did the large lot
and came in with a subdivision, back to your question Rich, how do you do a density transfer if
we came in with a large lot? How do we preserve these unique features if we can't go out and
buy them all? So this was one of the tools that we talked about. And again we're talking
specifically right now about product. Certainly the developer is looking for some lead from the
Planning Commission and the council as to what direction. We've given them some ideas.
Again we want to introduce different types of product. We've talked about some of the smaller
lot detached, similar to what we've got in Walnut Grove that do really well. And some other
types of products but what this talks about in the Livable Communities Act is the different types
of product. Whether it's owner occupied and rental, again the city is 90 percent owner occupied.
While we're bringing on a lot of rental, we're also bringing on just as much so the ratio isn't
changing, if you follow, we're tracking that. And then there's affordability for owner occupied
and affordability for rental. As you know we struggle with both of those. Again looking at some
of the density for example in Puke, we asked that in the row houses that they try to provide some
of those under affordable based on the Met Council. Right now that number's approximately
$170,000 for affordable. We're still in income of 40. $40,000 plus to make those, so the rental
again, we haven't done any affordable rental. We've bought a lot of rental product but the
affordability for rental is a lot tougher to do, but again we've got goals for that. Then looking at
the density, that's what we look at for density for single family. 1.8 and again for the multi-
family. Overall the city, what are we averaging? So the overall average, that 3.3 is overall
between the two. What is the city's overall average? And we're tracking that.
Sacchet: That's city wide average.
Aanenson: And again, how we came up with those numbers, we went back through, historically
through the city as it's development patterns. We wanted to be able to have a goal that was
achievable and we looked at that, and again that's what we're meeting. And that hasn't changed
since that 1991 comprehensive plan. Those densities. Those are consistent with what we've
doing over the last 20 years.
Sacchet: Thank you Kate.
Sidney: I have a question then as we move down the row here. Let's see, on page 4 of the staff
report you talk about the comprehensive plan and that in the city's 2020 land use designation,
we're talking about 80 acres and you calculated 50 percent industrial and 50 percent medium
density residential. And in this case we're proposing to give the developer 40 acres of industrial
land. What is the city getting in return for those 40 acres in your opinion?
Aanenson: Well again, looking back at what can we do if we want to capture some of the
environmental features. Could you do it industrial? It's a little bit tougher because you can't
compress. Most of the industrial buildings we have in town are warehouse type that only want to
be so tall so you can't make it more vertical so it's a little bit tougher. And large parking lots too,
give them the benefit that you could with the housing product. Again it would just depend on the
type of development that went forward if you could still accomplish it.
Sidney: Okay, another question about affordable housing. We had that information in our
packet. Have you had any discussion with the applicant about that? What their goals might be?
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Aanenson: Yes.
Sidney: What the city would want?
Aanenson: I guess specifically it's laid out in here that we want to see a plan of what types of
products. That we want to see diversity in price point, so it's not all one price point. And that it's
not all one product. A lot of variety and that we would hope that they could accomplish some of
that. And again they've indicated that it's going to be owner occupied. So the lowest end would
be 170 if you're trying to hit the affordable product.
Sidney: Now I'm jumping the gun but does the applicant have a discussion of their different
products they have?
Aanenson: Well it's noted on here. They talked about walkout townhouses, back to back
condominiums. We've given them some other ideas. We've got a lot of back to back
townhouses in the community. In my opinion, enough. So you know we're talking about that
and I think they're flexible too, to looking at some other products.
Sidney: Okay. I'll wait for the applicant to discuss things. Okay. Down the line here.
Lillehaug: I've asked my questions.
Blackowiak: Okay, good. And excuse me if these have been asked. Just give me the look and
I'll stop. Uli alluded to the school sites, and we've been looking at school sites and ranking them.
Do you have any feel as to what District 112's time line is as to?
Aanenson: Maybe Mr. Degler could answer that better than me. It's my understanding it's this
fall that they're trying to make some decisions on other sites.
Gayle Degler: Right but I don't want to speak at this point for the School.
Blackowiak: Right, understandably. I understand that. I'm just trying to get a feel for.
Aanenson: ...this fall that they're trying to make some decisions on.
Gayle Degler: Yes.
Blackowiak: Okay, because I know that we as a Planning Commission have looked at this. City
Council's looked at it, and I think at this point it's in the school district's hands and I guess my
question or my comment I guess at this point would be, do we need to rush this through before
the School District makes an ultimate decision because if they're talking this fall, then a month or
two out I don't think would make a significant difference, but.
Aanenson: Well.
Blackowiak: I just don't want to take anything off the table if we've already said, this is a site
and it's over 80 acres.
Aanenson: I don't think it's off the table as far as the developer's concerned. They're willing to
talk to the school district. The school district's willing so I don't think either, whatever
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
recommendation goes forward it's not off the table and you know we've talked about some of the
things that Chaska's done in working with the developer and making, and the City all becoming
partners. All that's still on the table. So but you need a willing party to kind of have those
discussions so, it's kind of fruitful to have that too.
Blackowiak: Understood. Park deficient area. Has the Park Director or the Park and Rec
Commission talked at all about what they would like to see? I know this is one of the areas that
when we did the trails and open space referendum several years ago, which was looked at. I
mean this area was looked at as an area it would be nice to acquire or something. Where does the
park?
Aanenson: There is one in this area. I don't want to disclose exactly where it is but it's not
specifically on this area, but it's kind of again a combination of a couple of different things. But
the park, they did meet with the park commission. The applicant did go to the park commission
meeting. They have had that discussion. Again we anticipate open space, not only with, to
preserve the natural features but also some open space with this project to provide whatever
amenities they need for their residents.
Blackowiak: Okay. I'm assuming that a traffic study would be part of this.
Aanenson: Absolutely.
Blackowiak: What kind of numbers are we looking at? I mean if there's a school in the area, for
example let's say that it's not specifically this site but something to the north or whatever. How
does that affect what we had looked at for 2020 and how that's going to affect traffic patterns in
the area?
Aanenson: Right, and that's why staff is recommending that we go with the area wide and we
shoot for the outside as far as most intense possibilities based on, you have to base it on our land
use plan. Based on that. And then looking again, we indicated that we think the public facilities
so that would also include a fire station, the park, a school, and so all those would be included in
the mix for the traffic study. And also, I don't know if you were here for that part too. The 212,
no 212 build and can all that be absorbed without 2127 That again kind of comes into the mix
too.
Blackowiak: Okay. A final question. General concept plan talks about what is required. Did I
miss, I haven't seen identification of lot size and lot width, is that?
Aanenson: Because it's a PUD, we didn't put that in there. They did outline.
Blackowiak: Okay, it says general concept plans for a PUD shall include the following.
Aanenson: Right.
Blackowiak: Okay, so do we not have it yet?
Aanenson: No, because I made the decision that it wasn't appropriate at this point because we're
not sure, you know they gave us a type of product that they were looking at, and it's a lot of
minutia with this size of a project that I'm not sure it would give you any, you're getting too
detailed at that point in my opinion.
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Blackowiak: Okay, I was just looking you know, just what the code said.
Aanenson: Yep.
Blackowiak: And then finally, refresh my mind. Number of units and acreage of, up on 5 and
41. Arboretum Village.
Aanenson: There was 120 gross. I think developable was closer to oh, 60 or 80. I can't
remember off the top. The overall density is I want to say 6 or 7.
Blackowiak: Okay, and number of units is, what was the final number?
Aanenson: I think it's closer to 320, 340. 343. 340.
Sacchet: 330, 340 1 believe.
Blackowiak: Say 340. And total acreage then is?
Aanenson: The gross was 120. I don't remember what the.
Blackowiak: Okay, so this is 50 percent smaller and 50 percent more dense?
Aanenson: I can't say that for a fact. I'm not sure.
Blackowiak: That's just quick math so, don't hold me to that. Okay, those were my questions
right now. Thank you.
Lillehaug: I have one final question. The back of your packets you had your, the tax chart and
your fiscal disparities charts. When I look at your three different scenarios basically it seems to
be a wash with all three scenarios. They seem to be.
Aanenson: Correct. Actually what's moving for tax capacity is more then multi-family, yeah.
The numbers, we re-ran those looking at some projects that we've done recently and the 50
square foot might be a pinch high. It might be closer to 44 per square foot for the commercial.
But again that's staging it out. Excuse me, industrial. There's not commercial. Staging that out
over the next couple years. And again that's based on today's tax rate and how the legislature set
it up.
Sidney: I think we have a few more questions.
Slagle: Kate, has Town and Country built here in Chanhassen?
Aanenson: No.
Slagle: Okay. Would there be any developments that are close by that people could look at?
Aanenson: Yes, there probably is. Actually there was one that Mr. Palmater did who I didn't
know did, it's up in Golden Valley that I really liked and actually recommended. He said oh by
the way, I did that project. I don't know if there's any that you want to mention.
Richard Palmater: You can go to our web page...
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Slagle: Great. Later on if they could state that web page, that would be great. Just touching
upon Alison's question on Highway 5 and 41. So is it, because I like to, trying to be graphic here
and visual. So we're looking at a piece of property that is smaller than the 5 and 41, or
somewhere close.
Aanenson: We have to talk net and gross and that's what I don't have the numbers. I know the
gross of Pulte was 120. The gross on this is 80.
Slagle: 5 and 417
Aanenson: Correct. So I don't remember what their net was.
Slagle: But many more units in this one than that one?
Aanenson: I can't say that. I'm not going to go on the record and say that without looking at the
number.
Slagle: Okay. Okay. Okay, that's it.
Sidney: Okay, go ahead. Final questions.
Sacchet: Ladies first. Yeah, final question. Just real quick Kate. I mean when we have a major
development like that across the street from another city, would we commonly coordinate that
somewhat with the neighboring city or do we just do our own thing? I mean like in this case
would we somehow work with the Chaska city to make sure it fits and coordinates?
Aanenson: Sure. When we put our comprehensive plan together and looked at the different
zoning options, each adjoining community has a right to comment on that adjoining so when we
put this together and talked to them, what are your plans? What are our plans to see where there's
rubs and then we asked for some changes in their plans regarding transportation specifically
around the Seminary Fen, which you're aware of. So yes.
Sacchet: So we do it in the overall planning. Would we also do it with a specific project like
this?
Aanenson: An EA? Sure. They have a right to comment.
Sacchet: Okay, that answers my question. That's what I want to hear.
Sidney: Okay, I think we're done. At least for this portion. So onto the applicant. Would the
applicant like to make a presentation? Please state your name and address for the record.
Krista Flemming: Good evening. My name is Krista Flemming. I'm with Town and Country
Homes and I'm the Project Manager for the land development side of it. Tonight also with me is
Richard Palmater. He's the Vice President of Land Development for Town and Country Homes,
and Ed Hasek with Westwood Professional Services. He's our landscape architect. I guess first
this evening I want to thank Kate and a lot of the staff for working with us diligently on this
project and really taking this through and guiding us through all the questions that we've had
because as you have many questions, we also have those questions. This project is a few years
out there, even though it will be here in a blink of an eye. So just a little bit more background,
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
and Kate's really explained a lot of it but we started meeting with her in March and with some of
the other staff members, to look at this project and then we took a site visit. Walked the site and
really got a feel for the land. A feel for the protected areas that the city's plan had pointed out
and get an understanding for how we could, should actually put together a concept plan without
just taking a look at it on paper and trying to put something together. And then after that we had
a concept plan put together. Presented that to the city. Discussed it with the staff, and went
forward with having the neighborhood meeting. And as you are all quite concerned about how
this development is going to affect the area and push out future development, we are also
concerned with that and I just want to reiterate before we get into some of the details on the plan
that we're not anticipating to develop or push development before 2005. What we're trying to do
with this project, and with your guidance is to get an idea and work through the steps that need to
get us to there, like the area wide study, so that when 2005 comes around and the MUSA line is
extended, we, as well as many of the other property owners, will be ready to advance the
development appropriately. The neighborhood meeting that we had with the staff just took a look
at all the people that have properties in this area that Ms. Aanenson has been talking about and
really showed our concept, but then also looked for a lot of input from the neighbors. And
answer some of the questions that you have tonight as far as, continuing farming and green acres
and assessments and that type of thing. So we also, after that we met with the Park and Rec
Board and talked about the area as Kate had said about where we would have a, or where the city
would like to have some large parks and then how this specific site is affected by some of the
goals of the Park and Rec. And we've concurred with their recommendations of taking a look at
having some special open space and park areas within the development in addition to this large
area wide park and these open space features that are part of the Bluff Creek plan. So tonight
we're here to really just get some feedback from the Planning Commission and as we've gone
through with all the process to bring everybody else up to speed and get everybody else thinking
on terms of future development, we'd like to hear from Planning Commission and what your
concerns are. And as we look at our concept plan and kind of talk about some of the products
that you have been questioning about. We are proposing all multiple family residential but a
variety of products and we have not shown you any specific products tonight. We've generalized
the areas as far as back to back products, row oftownhomes, empty nester detached townhomes,
that type of thing at this point because in 2005 we anticipate our architecture will evolve greatly
from this point, or until the time when we actually start development. We do have a web site that
you can take a look at all the developments that we're doing right now. We are a national
company so we have a branch in Chicago, which is our corporate, and then another branch in
Florida. You can see some of the different types of products we do in those areas and we're
newer to the Minneapolis area. We've been here 7 years and are starting to try to bring some of
those products into the Minneapolis area as well. And the web site is townandcountryhomes, all
spelled out, all one word, mn.
Sacchet: And, a-n-d?
Krista Flemming: A-n-d. townandcountryhomesmn.com. And I will, we can have that written
down for Kate so if you guys want to take, make sure we've got that straight so you can take a
look at it and feel free to visit any of our projects and contact us if you'd like. Our concept plan
really just shows some of the major connections that we feel are going to have to take place that
we've gotten feedback from the staff. This is the preservation areas that were identified with the
Bluff Creek Overlay District, and then just taking a look at mixing up some of the products within
so we can definitely see that we're not trying to put one product throughout the entire
development. We want to have something that's unique in this community. Unique to many
different life styles as far as people that are starting out with first time homebuyers and some of
the affordability issues that you've discussed tonight, as well as making it available to those who
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
want to live in a townhome community but maybe move up a step. Have a little bit bigger
townhome and then also empty nester. That type of thing. So those are the different products
we're looking at tonight. And I guess lastly, we've taken a look at the staff report and we concur
with it. We're willing to work with the staff and commission and council with any
recommendations you have, as well as the neighborhood. We've been trying to contact the
neighbors and get a feel for what they're looking at because ultimately we understand that our
parcel is not the next parcel to develop. There are other parcels that are going to have to develop
in order for this one to develop and we want to be a part of that and keep the process moving. So
at this point I guess I'll open it up to any questions that you might have for us.
Sidney: I have a question. I checked the Saturday paper in the home section and saw an ad for
Town and Country and it talked about townhomes and single family homes and you have four
different townhome. Premier collection, the homestead collection, courtyard and village. Could
you explain what those are?
Krista Flemming: Our homestead collection is a back to back product. We have, we range from
6, 8, 10 unit buildings and we have that in a variety of different locations within the Minneapolis
area. Our premiere collection is a, is basically a row townhome. It's a little bit larger townhome
and may have a walkout or a lookout to it so in essence you end up getting a story, a feeling of a 3
story, lookout, walkout building. A courtyard collection is more of an urban townhome and
we've just started building that product in the Minneapolis area and it gives you more of a denser
urban feeling, but yet it's geared to be more pedestrian friendly. All front doors on public streets
with guests being able to drive up in the front and you park your own car through an alley way in
the back or a cartway in the back.
Sidney: It says Shakopee. Is that, do you actually have a products there and available?
Krista Flemming: Yes. We actually have a product that we, we have a model that you can take a
look at in Shakopee. Three of these products that we're talking about are in Shakopee right now.
The last one is the village. The village collection and that is, it's a combination. It's a newer
product that we're doing and it has some single level living, either on the lowest level. The lower
level is all one level or you go up and then you live on one level just above that. And then there's
another option in there to have a two story, so it mixes it up a little bit but it's all, is in a row
townhome version so it's a little bit more unique. But all those products are in, except for the
premiere, in Shakopee. And then we also do single family. Right now all our single family is
concentrated in Maple Grove and we have a couple of different projects up there that we're
working on. And we're working on some future projects in the area to bring in some new single
family and some enhanced multi-family products.
Sidney: I'm wondering if you have had any discussions about the percentage of each of these
types of products you might have in this proposed development. What the price points might be?
What kind of... you might have.
Krista Flemming: When we initially took a look at this, we did take a look at just kind of
generalize an area based on some of the topography at this point and...the topography and the
natural features, that type of thing and where it's flater, take a look at something that is more
conducive to those types of products. And as far as specific percentages are concerned, we have
a very, very generalized plan right now. Until we actually do a more detailed project plan,
actually go out and survey all the topography specifically and evolve some of our architecture, we
won't really know exactly what we're going to have other.., percentages. And then as one of the
things that is, staff had noted in the back of the housing plan and working with the staff to get an
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appropriate mix for what some of the demographics would be as well. We may need to look at
the site and take a look at, at the time, in 2005 with what's the market really wanting. Is there
more of a need for, in this area to have some more empty nester type homes or is there more of a
need to have more of the, little bit older family home. You know something where you have a
middle range family, that type of thing and those are the types of things that we're going to study
within the next couple years as well.
Sidney: So is that the reason why you didn't really commit to a sketch?
Krista Flemming: Yes. That is definitely the reason why we didn't come in with a specific
sketch for you because we want to get your feedback too. If there's specific products that you've
seen that you feel that you would like to have certain features on, or layouts in this development,
we'd like to get your feedback now as well so that we can progress with that with the staff and
come back with something that really has included your input.
Sidney: Okay. Got mine done. Anybody else?
Sacchet: Few quick questions. Now on that concept plan that you just had up on the projector.
You actually do give quantities. You say 80 back to back. You say 80 walkouts. You say 140
row. You say 110 back to back. 110 walkout townhomes. How do you come up with those
numbers? I'm just curious.
Krista Flemming: These numbers are based on area and the land use plan. So when we, what we
did is we took a look at these general areas that they're showing with the rows, and we took that
area and then calculated it based on what the densities proposed for this area are allowable would
be and just came up with that broad number. As Ms. Aanenson's report notes that in order to get
a specific number we have to actually go through and make sure we're also meeting the
guidelines of the zoning ordinance, that type of thing. But this is the first broad glance if you just
took a flat.
Sacchet: So it's based on the area basically then?
Krista Flemming: Yes, correct.
Sacchet: The amount of street frontage and area and all that. And that would reflect what you
commonly do in your developments?
Aanenson: Can I just comment on that too? Excuse me for interrupting because I did look up
the Puke numbers. Now when Puke first came in it was closer to, I believe 478 or 500 and I did
look up the gross and nets. I want to make sure I was accurate. It was 120 gross, 63 net. If you
recall everything on the north side was twins, except for a few at the end where we had to, the
city wanted the more park property be put in some 3 units, but those are all twins so it was under
2 on the north side of West 78th. On the south side, higher. That's where the more urban rows.
So that was 63 net and the overall density was 5.7, and that's why I indicated in the report, they
just took the 8. You can't guarantee you're going to get that because you have to demonstrate
that they can get the parking that they want and all that with the product choice that they pick. So
that would be the outside. And we need to throw a number out there to do an environmental
assessment. To do a traffic. You have to shoot for the outside so will they get that many units?
We don't know. It may be less. Significantly less.
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Krista Flemming: Right now our site is 88 acres and just, we haven't done our specific
delineations or topography, that type of thing but we are anticipating between 70 and 75
developable acres, so that would be the net considered and that will be, the specifics on that will
be told at time as we go through the required report and documentation.
Sacchet: You have those two circles, amenity core areas. What is it?
Krista Flemming: In those two areas we had just proposed at this time to build some type of a
green feature, open space feature.
Sacchet: Playground or?
Krista Flemming: It could be a playground. It could just be a natural open space. It could be
something that's joined. There may be a ponding area in those specific locations and it's joined
with a trail connection that comes through there. It has a little totlot or something along those
lines. Initially we've just identified them at these intersections to provide some of an entrance or
a connectivity to the main street so when you're driving through the neighborhood you get a feel
for it as well as being a central location for people that live in that neighborhood. And when
looking at this with the Park and Rec Commission, they liked those features and they also
recommended taking a look at maybe doing some other features within the development to spread
it out as well. But that's what those are initially is to show that we do intend to have some special
features for this neighborhood specifically.
Sacchet: Okay, thank you.
Feik: Nothing for the applicant right now, thank you.
Slagle: I have a couple. The meeting that was held at the Rec Center. Any idea as to how many
neighbors attended? Ballpark.
Aanenson: I do upstairs. They signed in. I think there was 12. And this is the area, the 2005
study area. MUSA. That's what it was intended for. To talk about. To tell them that we've got
a pending project and as you've indicated, that things are changing out there so I believe there's
about 10 property owners and I think a pretty good turnout.
Slagle: Krista if you could, could you give me your thoughts or your company's thoughts on
sidewalks and then trails within the development?
Krista Flemming: Well what we've seen in many different communities and what we'd like to
have in our community for our residents is to have connectivity and sidewalks and trails are
definitely the way to do that and the Park and Rec Board has, or Commission has also
recommended that they are going to want to see that connectivity happen throughout here. And
we are very willing to make sure that gets incorporated into this plan and work with the staff to
see if there's any ways to really connect into some of the plans that they have for the Bluff Creek
Overlay District and that type of thing. And then with the overall area and if there's a specific
large plan in this 2005 area that's for park, we're going to definitely want to work with the street
connections and add trails and sidewalks to that.
Slagle: Pool. Any talk of a pool?
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Krista Flemming: No talk of a pool. We haven't had that kind of detail but, in discussions but
we typically have not done those types of amenities as some of them start to get to be issues with
homeowners association and that type of thing. So at this point we're just looking at green space
or park type facilities.
Slagle: That's all.
Sidney: Okay. Thank you. Okay next up we have a public hearing. Anyone wishing to address
the Planning Commission on this issue please come forward and state your name and address for
the record.
Mark Johnson: I'm Mark Johnson. I live at 9715 Audubon Road. I guess I'm just not really
clear as to exactly what we're discussing here. It seems like, what is the issue? Is it whether it's
going to be commercial or residential, industrial? Because there seems to be a lot of, we want it
medium density but we don't know how dense. We want townhomes but we don't know what
kind. I guess I'm just, I'm not clear as to what we just spent all this time talking about. It seems
like a lot of himming and hawing about it.
Sidney: Good question. Who wants to take a stab at answering that? I guess my take on it, and
I'll try and answer as a commissioner is that staff has been working with an applicant. They're
thinking about a development in this area and they're coming to us for direction as to what to do
really. So it is a lot of himming and hawing right now. So now is the time for feedback,
concerns, whatever for staff and also for the developer.
Mark Johnson: Oh alright, thank you.
Aanenson: Let me just add to that. You directed the question and that is the question. That is the
right question. First of all, is it going to be industrial or is it going to be residential? If it's
residential there's certain things that it can only be. Exceed so many units. They'll have to come
back and design that but they don't want to spent that level of design work until they know
they've got something going and that's a series of 2 years of coming back with a lot of meetings
because as a part of the PUD they also have to develop design standards. Come back and all that
so it takes a long time so the first question what you're trying to decide tonight is, is it going to be
residential or industrial?
Mark Johnson: Thank you, that was the question. Thank you.
Blackowiak: Madam Chair, could I just add something?
Sidney: Sure.
Blackowiak: Mr. Johnson, I'd like to hear your opinion. What do you think? I mean as a
resident. I didn't mean to put you on the spot but you're here and you know, what do you feel?
Mark Johnson: Alright.
Char Jeurissen: By the way I'm standing up here because I'm his mother.
Mark Johnson: We're actually co-owners of the property. We each own half of it. This is where
I live right here. This little piece in the middle of everything there. And well, one thing I'm
concerned with is this. This is all pretty wet along here. It's grassy wetlands and it seems that a
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
lot of the developments going on there. I think they're putting roads through there, whatever.
There's a lot of wildlife out there. That's one thing that I enjoy about the place. And I'm
wondering what's going to be done about privacy. Anything you want to add?
Char Jeurissen: Yeah, my concern on here is this part fight here, because that is a natural
waterway and has the creek in there. We have fox. We have wild turkeys. We have deer. We
have everything through there, and that's my concern. I want it to stay that way. As far as the
developer's concerned, across the, right across the street is Autumn Woods. Those are $450,000
and up homes. Do we want $170,000 homes across the street? That's another concern. And how
to look that, how to fit it into the nature of the land and the rolling of the land. So yeah.
Sidney: Any other comments? Okay.
Mark Johnson: That I can think of. Thank you.
Sidney: Anybody else please.
Mitch Anderson: Hi. My name is Mitch Anderson. I live at 2853 Timberview Trail which is in
Autumn Woods across Audubon. Thanks for the opportunity to come and provide some
feedback. It's important for us to get engaged in this process and thanks to the city for putting
that sign up right as we drive out of Butternut because we really wouldn't have known about this
otherwise. About the meeting or the development or anything so thank you very much for that.
I've got a couple points I'd like to address to the Planning Commission. First off on the central
question of industrial versus residential. I think residential is very preferable from the perspective
of the residents of Autumn Woods. I think the main concern we have probably with this, not to
be too blunt about this, is the density of the proposal that we're looking at today. It's very dense
compared to the surrounding areas. I think when you go back and look at this one more time.
Here's where we live in here. This is Autumn Woods. There's about 50 homes right there. 50
single family homes in there. This is a farm that's I believe in Chaska's plan single family.
Guided for single family. There are apartments up here, and this is industrial up here. So
everything really adjacent to this is single family homes and I guess if I had my preference I'd
love to see single family homes in there. I think that's much more consistent with the character
of the neighborhood and we could, I think do a nice job with a single family development there.
Obviously that's not consistent with your land use plan but for what it's worth, that's what we'd
like to see. In terms of the staff recommendation on the report, I think the area wide survey is
absolutely key to this because with that kind of density, if this were to go forward, we'd
absolutely have to understand the impact of the traffic. Audubon is already tough. My neighbors
that commute out Butternut and have to make left tums onto Audubon in the morning are very
adamant that this is already a problem and 500 homes in that development would make it I'm
sure worst. I can't tell you how much worst but we definitely want to look at that, as well as the
impact on the school system. Being in District 112, it's a fast growing school system and we
need to make sure that we're addressing that. And I think this area wide plan is the right way to
do that and I would really you know applaud that recommendation. I don't know if it makes
sense to add into a thing like that. Whether you know if we're evaluating this whole area,
whether or not we could do an impact on surrounding neighborhoods in terms of impact on
property values and other things. If that could be considered part of a plan like that. If it makes
sense for me as a property owner that, of course I'm interested in, selfishly in the value of my
property in Autumn Woods, and I don't know if there's a way you can look at similar
developments in similar neighborhoods and if there's been impacts on property values and if that
would be an appropriate thing to include in a study like that. It seems like we even selfishly,
that'd be great to see you know ifI can anticipate problems as a result of this. The parks thing is
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critical. I think if you look at the Autumn Woods development, right here is the totlot in our
development and I think we want to make sure that there's similar amenities in that kind of a
development so they're, just so it keeps the same kind of character and nature oftotlots and things
and places for the kids to play. And the last thing that I did is, now I'm not a surveyor guy here.
This is the map up against the window, so behind here you've got this proposal in on top by, I
downloaded your 2020 land use plan and I overlaid just to get kind of a sense for the outline of
the Bluff Creek area here. The primary and secondary zones, and this development, and I think
you can see. And this is pretty accurate. I mean it lines up pretty well with the roads and major
features. That that's what we have in here. You preserve the wetland and most of the primary
and secondary areas, except for right in here, so there's the primary line. There's the secondary
line. Down in here I think as Mr. Johnson pointed out, the wetland, the primary and secondary is
all through the southern end of the development here so I certainly would encourage the
developer and the city to make sure that we do as much as we can within the tools and processes
and things that we have available to try to preserve as much of that sensitive area and the wildlife
and the nature of that home as possible so. Again thanks for the opportunity to provide comments
and if you have any questions for me I'd be happy to answer them.
Sidney: Questions?
Lillehaug: I have a quick question being you're a Chaska resident.
Mitch Anderson: I am a Chaska resident.
Lillehaug: Would you like to see a Chanhassen school in this area?
Mitch Anderson: I'm not in a real great position to answer that. My gut reaction isn't, but thanks
for the opportunity to invite us here to comment. I do realize we're Chaska and you're
Chanhassen but this idea of working together as two communities and as a couple of you pointed
that out tonight, that spirit of cooperation and I hope that continues throughout the whole process
and we want to be involved and help... Thank you.
Sidney: Anyone else please?
Gayle Degler: I'm Gayle Degler, 1630 Lyman Boulevard and just a few things came to my mind
as we listened to the discussion tonight. Number one, the letter from Mr. Wagner. Is that public
information?
Aanenson: Sure. I can get you a copy.
Gayle Degler: Okay. I would like to look at that later. Another comment was made about the
public meeting that was held for local property owners. And yes, obviously a lot of property
owners did attend. That was one of those nights where I had a conflict and obviously I did not
make that meeting so just because the meeting was held for, not everybody is able to attend every
meeting.
Aanenson: Your wife and your mother were there.
Gayle Degler: Exactly. Exactly. Another comment as far as the land. It was indicated that part
of it is pretty flat, and I have been farming it for years. Part of it is pretty flat, but obviously part
of it that I do farm, just so you're aware of it, is rather hilly. Just so that nobody gets the wrong
impression. I think she indicated that when she mentioned the walkout basements and the
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different styles of housing so I just wanted to verify that. What I'm most concerned about would
be how this would, this development would impact our property and my parents of course. If this
were industrial, how does that, because part of my folks' property is zoned industrial. How does
that affect my folks' and vice versa? If this goes residential, could we get residential? Or
because if the council would give this one residential, and eliminate the industrial, would that put
more pressure on our property, my folks' property, that that would remain in industrial and not in
residential? And I'd like to somehow have the impact in that. The other comment is, just looking
at this shot. Is it an optical illusion or does it appear that that road, proposed road heading to the
north is a different size than the road that's going through the development? From my distance, it
almost looks like it was a smaller road and I was just looking at the concept plan that's against the
wall over there and there, it looks like it's the same size.
Aanenson: I don't think that decision has been made or anything on that. If I could just comment
on your first question. Which is the industrial and what would be different? I think that part of it,
really the piece of the puzzle that as a staff we're trying to solve and that is infrastructure to all
the pieces. Whether your's is industrial, this one's industrial, we still need a road system that
works to connect these properties. We still need the sewer and water for all these properties, and
that's kind of the biggest framework piece that we're trying to put together that we want to work
together with this area wide to talk about. We want to minimize creek crossings and that there so
whatever the zoning is, we still need to work together on those issues.
Gayle Degler: Okay but my concern was, would it be harder for our parcels to be 100 percent
residential if this would go residential?
Aanenson: Let me just clarify for the Planning Commission. Mr. Degler's property that he's
talking about is guided industrial. It doesn't have the either or so.
Gayle Degler: It doesn't?
Aanenson: No. The most easterly portion, this portion is medium density. On the other side of
the creek is industrial. So that was your concern. If this all went residential, could you have the
opportunity to go residential...
Gayle Degler: On the whole parcel?
Aanenson: Correct. And it's guided industrial. That would take a land use change. I mean
that's something that they would have to consider.
Gayle Degler: So you're saying it would have, if this parcel would go residential, it would have
no affect on the minds of the Planning Commission.
Aanenson: I did not say that.
Gayle Degler: Okay. Because obviously the city in the past has been very protective of the
amount of base that was out there for industrial type purposes.
Aanenson: That's correct.
Gayle Degler: And I just, you know if there's a trade-off one direction, you know I'm looking for
a trade-off the other direction. That's all I'm asking the council, the Planning Commission would
keep their options open. You mentioned the school sites. Like I say, I'm not speaking anything
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
with the school at all, but let the Planning Commission know that the school district is looking at
it. I'm sure you're well aware of it and keep your options open. At this point, thank you.
Sidney: Anybody else? Yes.
Mitch Anderson: Can I ask just a question?
Sidney: Sure. Do you want to come up please?
Mitch Anderson: Sure. Hi, Mitch Anderson again from Chaska. Could you just clarify what
office industrial is?
Aanenson: Sure. Maybe a typical example would be just as we indicated, just to the north of
you. If you go down.
Mitch Anderson: Printing guys and that up there?
Aanenson: Yeah, those kind of. Chanhassen's, our standards are a little bit different than
Chaska's as far as, we tend to be a little bit more light industry. Pillsbury, which does have a lot
of trip generation, through traffic. Our's tends to be more office, warehouse mix. It's not quite
as, if you look at similar to what's behind Audubon. There's frozen food...little bit more trip
generations.
Mitch Anderson: Okay, what are shopping malls and gas stations?
Aanenson: Commercial.
Mitch Anderson: Commercial. So it's not commercial?
Aanenson: It's not commercial. If someone did come in and they wanted to do commercial, that
would take a land use change so we only look at those two options because we do get a lot of
requests for people that are looking for a commercial sites. But we didn't receive those. We just
said that wasn't the appropriate one.
Mitch Anderson: Thanks for clarification.
Deb Kind: Hello Planning Commissioners. I'm Deb Kind. I live at 2351 Lukewood Drive. I
came here to sit in the back row and just hang out, just of course I'm interested in what's going
on. I can't resist to speak. I'm a person who is not affected by this at all. I live far away and I
just want to speak as a taxpayer in the community. I really want to encourage you to keep as
much industrial office tax base as possible. And it's not clear to me, after listening to the
discussion, which is interesting not having the packet. You don't really know as much what's
going on. It's not clear to me from the discussion whether it's an either or for the entire parcel or
whether part of it is guided for office institutional, office industrial, I'm sorry, or what Kate. Can
you explain that?
Aanenson: Sure. I guess they could have come in with the either, with splitting it. The way that
percentage came up is when we put together, we had to base our sewer and water plans, based on
the certain threshold so when this piece of property, we said it could be either or, industrial or.
Deb Kind: So but on the land use map it's got the diagonals going through the whole thing?
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Aanenson: Correct.
Deb Kind: It's not just part of it that's guided that way.
Aanenson: Right. So our assumption was that it was 50 percent industrial, 50 percent multi-
family. So that's what that percentage. Having said that, could the developer have come in with
a mixed project like that? Yes.
Deb Kind: That's where I was going.
Aanenson: Right. Could the project come in all industrial? Yes. And this applicant came in all
residential.
Deb Kind: What I'd like to encourage the Planning Commission to consider is guiding the
developer to consider a mixed use planned unit development. I think a PUD is totally appropriate
with all the sensitive areas. The green spots staying green, but maybe consider having part of it
be, stay commercial. Maybe business neighborhood would be appropriate so that we get that tax
base and not have quite so many homes putting pressure on our school district and that sort of
thing. It's kind ofnervousy being here. Up there it's not, I'm kind of shaky. Sorry. And then I
just want to remind you about having compelling reasons to do things. Taking away from that
50/50 rule. I did see the packet. There's some allusions to it being a wash, tax base wash.
Whether it was industrial or residential. I've always been told from staff that residential is the
wash. They give about the same as what they receive. Sometimes they give less than what they
receive, but at least office industrial we get more in tax money back and I think we really need to
keep that component there. I guess that's the main thing I want to hit on. Thank you.
Sidney: Anybody else? Okay, seeing no one else I'll close the public hearing. Commissioners.
I'm sure we have lots of comments. Let's start, if we can, maybe addressing the land use issues.
Maybe getting past the himming and hawing and focusing on the large issues, like Kate said. Are
we talking about industrial or residential or mix? Really the rezoning issue. And then if you can
think about some of the issues surrounding the PUD. I have a number of them that I can probably
speak to in a few moments but anyhow, who would like to start?
Slagle: I'll start.
Sidney: Okay.
Slagle: I think the way that I feel, excuse me. I'm just getting over a cold. The way that I feel is
that currently I could not give you an answer one way or the other without seeing the different
options. I almost.
Sidney: Options meaning?
Slagle: Industrial versus residential, medium density. I am trying to get an idea of the vision of
that piece of property, and what we have is a proposal for one idea. Although multiple ideas
within that idea, it's basically a medium density proposal. So for me to say I think that's great, I
have nothing to compare it to. So the one thing that I would add is that if we're going to stick
with the current land use plan, which I obviously think we should, I'd like to see ideas more than
just this conceptual idea of medium density with multiple types of homes within it. Because I
have to be honest. I think the density of this piece of property is way too high. I mean I'll just be
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honest with you. I do not want to see more and more properties developed within the city that
look like we see, where you look across and it's just rooftops. And just, to the developer it's
probably helpful to hear those things at this point. So I just want you to know that I am really
going to be looking for the uniqueness, if you will, if this is the path we follow, in creativity.
Because we've seen what's happened in the past and there's some things that are lacking in many
people's minds of certain developments. So just to let you know that I'd like to see more options
than just this one.
Sidney: Okay, I have that on my list here. Okay.
Feik: Okay. We have a unique asset there and I would like that not to be hidden by industrial.
That northern border of this parcel. However, that's not to say that a good portion of the rest of
the property couldn't go industrial. I have a concern regarding the density being unknown at this
juncture without something a little bit more firm as far as what they really believe they can get in
there reasonably. The unknown factor of the density bothers me to go forward on strictly a
residential piece. And also I would like to have seen some product type from this builder, either
in front of us today or that I could have reviewed prior to this. I think I would have had a
different feeling of what I'm looking at because I'm feeling as though I'm working in the dark.
Not sure what I'm looking at.
Sidney: Okay. Rezoning issues.
Feik: Zoning issues. Again, I would, I don't see a problem keeping a large portion of that as
commercial.
Sidney: Industrial.
Feik: Excuse me, industrial. That doesn't bother me. I think the proximity to the major
thoroughfare just south of that, being Pioneer and just west of it goes over towards Home Depot
and everything, I don't think it's inappropriate.
Sidney: Okay.
Sacchet: A PUD is definitely the way to go. The way I see this. We have a very sensitive
environmental situation there with the Bluff Creek and the PUD is the tool that the city has
available to shift some densities and make sure that the sensitive areas are properly preserved.
Personally I think residential is appropriate here based on the information in our package. In our
package there is a little table that explains the tax capacity of 50/50 industrial office and
residential, of all residential and all office industrial, and not only is it a wash. Actually the
medium density residential is slightly better in terms of tax base. Now I don't know whether
that's accurate. But based on that table, medium residential is the most advantageous from the
viewpoint of tax based on information in front of us. I would not want to see it go single family
residential because if it goes that route, we could possibly lose the PUD aspect, and as such the
aspect of being able to protect the natural features in the area. There is definitely density issue. I
share that sentiment with commissioners that spoke before me. I think that the density is going to
be the delicate thing to fine tune here. By first glance the density seems a little high. But we
haven't really drilled down to that level to be able to really judge that. The comment that came
up from the Chaska resident from Autumn Woods I think is very appropriate. I mean we don't
have much of a transition aspect there, but if you can build in some sort of a transition. At least
maybe with the products that you put in, that we try to have some sort of a flow. I mean we do
that city wide, and we should do it here and we should do it in the context of the city of Chaska.
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Because it's all one community in that sense. Whether it's across the street or not. The area wide
survey I think is very crucial. Looking at the parks aspect. Looking at the traffic issues. That's
things to look at as we refine this. The wetland delineation I think is a big issue because I see a
little bit of a discrepancy like the residents, the neighbors. Immediate neighbors have pointed out
that there is this arm of a wetland reaching into the southern area of this development. That
definitely needs to be looked at. I mean everyone needs to know where is the wetland and what's
there and that needs that we want to be sensitive to what impact does it have. How can it be
mitigated and shift things around to make it work. Neighborhood commercial. There isn't any
neighborhood commercial down there except the bank on the comer of Pioneer and Audubon I
believe. Is it a bank even? No, it's not at that comer.
Blackowiak: It can't be commercial can it Kate?
Sacchet: I mean it seems like it could be a good thing. To have some very low key neighborhood
commercial component in there potentially but that we delegate to build it in, that it could be
worthwhile to consider on a small scale.
Aanenson: I think that's another reason to do the area wide. Just so you're aware, some of the
property owners in here as part of the 212 petitioning, some of the remnant pieces were adamant
about getting some commercial. It's been the staff's position that it's tied into the design.
Where it's appropriate working through the overall design. Looking at traffic. That's why it's so
important that we do this area wide. Where is the peak intersections? Where should that be?
How does it transition to the other pieces? Just to give it to one person, without looking at that
entire piece, staff was uncomfortable doing that. The PUD does allow for 25 percent support
commercial. As you're aware up on the Arboretum Village we did give some support
commercial. There's a transit hub through there. That's another piece of this that we would look
at too. Southwest Metro and moving through there, so again we would look at that as an area
wide. How that works. Now just having said that, I wanted to remind you that at the intersection
of 212 and 101, that this was given in the 1991 comprehensive plan. That's high density at that
intersection plus commercial. So as we move through this and making those transition, we
looked at that so.
Sacchet: We need to see it as a large context.
Aanenson: Yeah, what's the scale of that and then also on the piece as you go up on 101, the
piece outside of the Mission Hills was given some support commercial there too so, how does
that all work in the scale? So we didn't, you know we've talked to them about that, and kind of
again, the larger 2005 MUSA area, but it's back there. And we would put that in the background
study for traffic and transportation too but, and we're kind of careful about where that goes right
now based on those other two locations.
Sacchet: Thanks for clarifying that Kate. It's true, we need to look at that in a larger context.
Just to wrap up my comment. I do think the medium and with the shifts, some areas might be
effectively more, possibly even more than medium. We have to see how that works out with the
density transfers but I think that's it. Thank you.
Sidney: Okay. Additional comments?
Lillehaug: I'll just comment here on the land use quick like. I think PUD is definitely the way to
go with some transfers. I guess I am concerned about the parcels to the north there. They are
guided as office and industrial, and we will have to look at them in the future. As far as right
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now, this is guided as office industrial and residential and I think residential is a good fit for this
area.
Blackowiak: Okay. Just a few comments on the zoning. I also agree the density is pretty intense
and I don't think that I can really support 540 or 520 or how ever many homes it is in there. At
this point it looks like we're almost leap frogging. I mean all of a sudden we're just plopping this
medium residential in with very little consideration as to what is happening to the north, on the
Degler properties. What is happening to the south, and how it's going to fit into the overall Bluff
Creek development and it just doesn't seem to fit as I look at it right now. We're looking at this
plan in a vacuum and I understand that it's just how we have to do it sometimes but I agree with
Rich's comment that it would have been nice to see, okay this is how an industrial could have
gone in. Or this is how a combination could go in. So we have a better feel for how to evaluate
one of three choices because we're given different tax options, etc, but we aren't given any
different plan options. It would have been nice to see that. I think this is premature until District
112 does something. I would really like to see, I mean we've given them all the information we
have. I would like to see if indeed there's going to be some sort of decision this fall. I'd like to
see what that decision is before we lock ourselves into, even though this is a concept, I would like
to see what District 112 is going to say before we go ahead. Kate, help me. Tax capacity versus
cost of service provided. This has nothing to do with how much it costs to provide those services,
does it?
Aanenson: That's correct.
Blackowiak: Okay, so basically, and tell me. I've often heard that, and I think this is what Deb
was kind of alluding to is that it costs more to provide services for residential than it does for
industrial commercial.
Aanenson: It depends on what type of commercial industrial... Some have more, depending on
the nature of the.
Blackowiak: Okay, so this is actually just income, not anything that has to do with expenses of
providing services?
Aanenson: Taxes.
Blackowiak: Right, it's tax income.
Aanenson: Tax capacity.
Blackowiak: Right, and not how much the services would cost the city to provide.
Aanenson: Correct.
Blackowiak: Okay. 212/312 issue. Do you have any inkling of what's going on? I mean I don't
want to put you on the spot.
Aanenson: They're out securing right-of-way. They're doing design build and Matt was at a
meeting this morning. The State is working diligently to get design build so they're ready if
money is freed up, so they are working on acquiring most of the right-of-way has been acquired
and they're working on the design. Is there anything else you wanted to add to that?
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Saam: They've offered on all the right-of-way. They don't have it acquired yet, but there's
offers in. The official line is 2011 to 2015 for construction. They don't have funds allocated as
of yet for it.
Blackowiak: Okay. Alright, I guess those are my zoning issues. I, again would really like to see
something, other plans to compare it to.
Aanenson: Can I just comment on that?
Blackowiak: Sure.
Aanenson: This is what the developer came forward with so unless somebody else came forward
with something, I mean we have to respond to this application so that's kind of where we're stuck
so you have to say yeah or nay to this application. If they don't want to do an industrial, then
someone else has to come forward. And part of this process is the catalyst. This application is
the catalyst to study the larger framework issues. If the school was to go down there, we still
need to provide sewer and water, and this again is kind of a catalyst to make some other things
happen. Whether we do some park, some schools, some other density transfers or something like
that too. So I guess the other thing I just want to make sure is understood, we do leap frog all the
time. Westwood, Pulte leaped over everything else on West 78th and there's still big gaps in there
so it happens. Just because, and that's the unfortunate part about the free market economy is
some people are ready to develop and other people aren't, and that's a tough thing for us to
struggle with too as the staff. When somebody's ready to go and somebody isn't. And ultimately
the council has to make some of those decisions to say whether or not, if the people ahead say we
don't want to have to pay those assessments, or there's enough assessments on the line to make
those projects go. But unfortunately it doesn't always happen in sequence. So it would have
been nice if somebody else would have come in first, but we'd still be having this same
discussion to say how do we frame up the rest of this because we need to figure out the road
system and the sewer and water for this whole other area as far as service so.
Blackowiak: Okay, that's it for my comments.
Sidney: Okay. I'll take a stab at zoning stuff and then have more.
Sacchet: I'd just like to clarify a point. I think it's pretty important because now I'm actually
very confused.
Blackowiak: Glad I could help.
Sacchet: What exactly is the expectation for us to do tonight? I'm looking at where we find land
here and are we trying to recommend to City Council something?
Aanenson: Yes.
Sacchet: Because it doesn't quite spell that out in there so we are, the conditions that you put in
front of us is the set that you want to see, is that something we stand behind those can be
presented to council, is that correct?
Aanenson: Correct.
Sacchet: Okay. That clarifies it, thanks.
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Sidney: Okay. I think I have plenty of comments I guess and kind of stick to the broad overview.
I think I have a feeling, the first thing I wrote here is that it seems, the concept, supposed
development seems premature to me because of MUSA 2005 and also School District 112
considerations. We're talking awful long time from now before really we might see any
development. And in my experience on the Planning Commission, this seems to be so far in the
future that I guess I'm a little bit confused why we're seeing it. And that's why I brought up the
point, it seems like this is more of a, in my mind, an open discussion item where we still have a
lot of issues to flush out and it's really even not in my mind to the concept plan stage. And I'm
concerned that if we are talking about a concept plan at this point, that we would, as a Planning
Commission, give us more of an elevated status of more credibility to this proposed development
without really having a lot of details, and that's where I think we still need some details in this
concept plan. In terms of the zoning issues, I really think we should strongly think about sticking
with the comprehensive plan. I guess I've been on the Planning Commission long enough to
have a feel that we really need to, if at all possible, as a city, maintain our industrial base. And to
give that up could have tremendous tax implications for the community in the future. And 40
acres in my mind is quite a bit, and I guess I'm not quite sure that we're really getting anything
significant in return for giving up 40 acres of industrial land for residential development. And I
share the other commissioners concerns about the density, and I think that's where we need some
more details in this concept plan and more input from the school district, Park and Rec, etc, etc.
So I'll kind of leave it at that for other commissioners to fill in the blanks, and I guess at this point
my feeling is that I'd like to table this until we get some more information. I'd like to hear other
comments.
Slagle: I'd agree.
Sacchet: May I add something to that?
Sidney: Yes please.
Sacchet: It's tricky because on one hand we're looking at a concept, so by definition we're
looking at something that's not defined yet. We're being asked for direction and I feel like
there's a lot of merit in the concept that's being presented. I would be very careful, because
personally I would not want to give the impression that I don't like the concept, because I like the
concept. However, I see discrepancy that in the, in what's in front of us to pass to City Council to
endorse or reject, it's a little bit a dichotomy. There's a lot of details. I mean go all the way
down to Fire Marshal and Building Inspector comments. I mean it looks like we're light years
away from that. So what I would be in favor to table it, but not in the sense of showing resistance
but actually in the sense of wanting this a little more lined up to the concept of to the stage of
where this concept is at. And at the same time I would want to welcome this concept, because it
has tremendous merits and yet we need to be able to go through it a little more from what.., we
have to have this dialogue continue. That's my comment.
Feik: I concur. My microphone's down here on the table. I would also like to table this but for a
probably shorter period of time than I think what some of my other fellow commissioners are
looking at. My reason for tabling this is, I've had all of four days to take a look at a plan that the
residents have had weeks to look at. That the Park and Rec Commission has had significantly
more time than we have had. I think it is fair and equitable to the applicant that we take some
time to review what has been proposed, and that we give the applicant some legitimate, timely
feedback on our part. I don't think it's fair that we ask the applicant to draft commercial plans or
do some other things. I think there's certainly some questions that we might like to ask staff in
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relationship to this as it relates to tax burdens and some other things, but I guess I would like to
see it tabled for a very short period of time. Couple of weeks. I'd like to see it come back and
addressed in a very forthright manner.
Sacchet: IfI may add to this. It would be very interesting in the context of this concept to get
some more specifics from the applicant in terms of the products that you work with. Not that, I
wouldn't ask you to do specifics for this, but in terms of the context. What are your products?
What are some of the specifics that you have done? Yes, we can go pull it down from the web
page of course, but if you can help us to bring that to life a little bit, I think that would help too.
Lillehaug: Two questions. How long can the commission actually table this for?
Aanenson: I was going to add. You have 60 days. We can ask them for an extension if they
want to wait that long. But I guess that's a question you have to ask them what their timeframe
is. They've got a purchase agreement.
Krista Flemming: In just listening to all your discussion, it's been a very good discussion for us
to hear as well and we agree with some of the points that you're bringing up and how you'd like
to take a little more time to really research us before making a decision and trying to present
something that you support to your City Council. So we would definitely continue our review
process beyond the 60 days to help you guys take a look at that in more detail.
Sacchet: Thank you.
Lillehaug: And then one other question. If we were to approve it as it stands right here, what
type of commitment is that for the City? I mean in 5 years.
Aanenson: Concept is non-binding. Non-binding, so in order for them to move it to the next
level, and the reason why we didn't put a lot of things in there. It was my recommendation, was
really to get a blank slate. To get direction from you. You know to say what do you want to see?
It's a blank canvas to say, you know they said we want to introduce 4 or 5 products. We've asked
them to come back with a specific plan. Really what we're trying to figure out tonight, do you
want them to go forward with residential or do you want them to stick with industrial? Some of
the same things that have come up with both. I mean some of the same systems need to be
analyzed but for them to go forward, there needs to be some direction. So I guess that's what I
was asking, hoping that we would get you know some of the housing plans. There's certain
things that you would like to see, and I guess that's what they're saying. They're saying they're
hearing some of that so.
Sidney: Okay, I've been writing down a list of things that personally I would like to see in the
next go around. Alison, do you have any?
Blackowiak: Yeah, and I'll just add a couple things. I'm going back to page 2 where it talks
about general concept plan and I know Kate you said you didn't introduce some of these things,
but for me to embrace the concept, I mean just telling me 540 units is scary. I don't want to hear
that. I want to see, okay show me some roads. Show me some walkways. I mean give me an
idea of where these things might be and then I might be a little more comfortable embracing the
concept because like LuAnn pointed out, we're elevating this to something maybe more than it is
because we don't know what it is. In other words, I don't think this is a concept yet. I don't
think this is a concept plan. It's a concept. Maybe it's not a concept plan. I'm splitting hairs
here, but do I want 540 there? No. But if you show me 540 and can it fit in and can, show me
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where some roads are. Show me how the parks are going to fit in. Where's some open space.
Then I might be able to get behind that concept.
Aanenson: I just want to be clear on that. You still haven't done the environmental stuff for this
so you may make a judgment based on a plan, and we come back and say guess what folks, the
road system whole change and this all flipped around so we have to be really careful buying into
a specific design and that's what I'm trying carefully not to lead you down that path because right
now we're trying to keep it blank. There's some general framework issues we want to agree on,
but things are going to shift. The road may change substantially when we do this traffic study.
Blackowiak: Okay, understandably. Then my second part of it was, is there any way that you as
the planning department can ask somebody to give us a concept of office industrial? Can you
sketch something out and say, this is what it could look like? I mean I don't want worst case
scenario. I don't want you throwing it all in the primary zone and saying this is what we're
getting, but what would be a realistic.
Aanenson: I think that's fine but in deference to the applicant, they're not coming forward with
that request so.
Slagle: Well then if I can interrupt. Then that's why my suggestion of seeing the different
options from this applicant, if they so choose. If they so choose not to, then I think we should
vote on it tonight, yeah or nay and if it ends up being a nay, then they go back and say okay, what
should we do. Should we go ahead and give them options for other, for the industrial/residential?
Industrial only? Or we pull away from the offering, and these are strong terms. I'm not
suggesting you do that, but the one thing that I want to make clear is that I think that when the
concept plan was addressed to us some time ago, and that's thanks to Kate giving us a heads up, I
thought it was going to be more open discussion. When we talk about elevating something that's
a recommendation or in essence a means of influencing the council, that's where I stop and I say,
this is way premature before I want to get involved in that. So I am asking for the fellow
commissioners that either we vote on it yeah or nay, to give them direction as to what their next
step should be, or table it. I do, in concert with Alison, believe that there are some other things
going on down here that I don't want to again start this process further down the road and then at
some point go gosh, you know. The school's going in or where are the roads? I mean we're
talking 312. I don't even see where the roads connect to 312. There might be an argument on the
far southeastern comer of this development to have industrial because there's a road that goes
over towards 312. You know I mean so, I don't know if that all made sense but I hope it did.
Sacchet: Kate, if I may Madam Chair. I'm still perplexed. We have a chicken and egg problem
here. We talk about an egg and then we say we need the chicken and we talk about the chicken,
we say we need an egg. It's a problem, and what's the procedure here? I mean we're talking
about the concept and what we can do. Then you bring up the environmental study. Well should
the environmental study come first? Well the environmental study has to have the concept in
order to be studied. So how does it work? Could you help me please?
Aanenson: Sure. It's a good question. You have to have somebody willing to go forward.
That's what I was saying before, to create the whole process. If there's no one willing to go
forward to take a risk and say I'm ready to develop, there is nothing that's going to happen. We
won't decide any roads. The school's going to come in and we're going to say, we don't know
how we're going to put the roads in place. We still need that discussion for anything to happen
down there. We've got a catalyst for some of that to happen. It's not cast in stone. The concept
review, we could make some changes as Rich indicated to say you know what, how this road
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
comes in is going to affect. We need to rethink that. It's not cast in stone. But for them to spend
the money at the level of detail that you're talking about to go forward, they need to have some
sort of commitment of what they want to do. I don't know if they're willing to look at industrial.
You'll have to ask them, and my understanding is there wasn't.
Sacchet: So in other words, what's in from of us is the question. Is this a concept that we would
have an interest going forward?
Aanenson: Correct.
Sacchet: Is that in a nutshell what we're looking at?
Aanenson: There's a lot of things that still need to be resolved, absolutely.
Slagle: But in interest, it's very clear, important for all of us, an interest in, what is interest
defined as? I mean, and I don't know the answer to that, but what does it commit it us to? Now I
hear that it doesn't commit us to anything.
Aanenson: Legally, no.
Slagle: We can say gosh, you know this sounds like a great idea and this great applicant goes and
spends tens of thousands of dollars on something and then 2 months from now we say.
Aanenson: Or you get the environmental stuff back and you make some changes, correct.
Slagle: Correct. I mean those are questions that I don't know the answers to.
Aanenson: I guess, you know we've done this process in my 11 years here, 5 or 6 times and this
is the same process that we've gone through. Villages on the Pond, Puke, Arboretum Village.
Slagle: You're batting 0 for 2.
Aanenson: Pardon?
Slagle: 0 for 2.
Sidney: Well let's bring everything kind of back here and try and wrap up. I guess we can him
and haw, I like that term. But I think my personal feeling is that, okay. We have an applicant
before us. They have a basic concept. It's going to be going forward I'm sure with residential
units in mind, medium density. How can we work with that and understand really more details of
the concept to be able to make a recommendation to the City Council. And then in the process
understand if it makes sense to give up some industrial land to residential because we're getting
something back in return, and I think that's the major thing that I'm looking for. Now for a list of
issues that I'm kind of gearing up to table this, in my mind I recommend tabling this until we get
some of these issues resolved and get more information. I wrote down a list of things that I heard
and thought of. That is the other commissioners comments. I think in the staff report we need to
have some indication in writing from the Park and Rec Director as to what their input is and
where sidewalks and trails might be appropriate. Also some school district input. And I guess
Alison if you have any comments about that. If you want that in writing or?
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Blackowiak: Oh no, not specifically. And I don't mean to put anybody on the spot but I just
don't want to close off options. That's my only thing. I mean this is a concept, and I understand
what you're saying about tabling. And then I'm thinking through and it's like, are we going to
get the level of detail that we want by tabling it? I don't know. So I'm coming back asking
myself the question. Okay, do we just vote and yeah or nay we move it along? And that's kind
of what I'm thinking so I'll just throw that out.
Sidney: And the third I'm thinking about, you know our next go around that we would want
notification of Chaska residents. And I'm not sure if that was really done or not. Not that I could
tell. I think it's important because we do have some transition areas that we're dealing with on
the Chaska border. And I guess I'd be interested in understanding what the land use is of the
Wagner property.
Aanenson: Across the street?
Sidney: Yeah. And then adjacent Chaska land uses and zoning. Also in the staff report we
talked about, you talk about conservation easements and how those might be applied and just
general where those would be used. I think the major hang up, you know really if it changes it
changes but to have a sketch plan with product types, just a general layout of the streets. We
know that the architecture's going to change but just if we can have some idea bout transitions
and different products. Where they might be located within the development. Also some
information about how the intensity of this project compares to other developments such as Pulte,
Autumn Ridge and Walnut Grove .... what percentage is park or open space or whatever. Really
a good discussion about the density. You know details really the gross and net values. Really
discuss. If the developer's willing, you know additional options. If there is some industrial
component, where maybe a neighborhood business component, bring that forward. And then last
on my list I have, impact on the Degler property. What those impacts might be. And then really
if we're going to give up industrial, I need to have some kind of idea about whether or not we
would get some affordable housing that results. Could we get 30 percent affordable? And how
much park space could we expect? And I don't think these are really big things you know, well.
Aanenson: You know the school district's not going to make a decision so I don't know if we
can get you that so.
Sidney: But at least acknowledge that they recognize that this is happening. So anyway, those
are my list of things but if we were to table, what I would like to see in the next go around.
Feik: I'm comfortable voting on this tonight and sending a message that hopefully would be clear
to the applicant if that is the way the commission wants to go. If we don't decide on, to vote on
this tonight or if we determine that we should table, and it does come back, it certainly will come
back I'm sure, I would like to see a couple of things. One would be the second half of the tax
implication as it relates to the cost associated with providing services to the different product
type. Both the product type that's being discussed here now as well as the product type that
would be potential, in another situation. However, should the applicant really like or wish to try
to build generally as conceptually been shown tonight with trying to maximize the densities,
which as a developer I could certainly see the desire to do that. I would want the significant
commitment on the applicant's part as it relates to park access, to the natural areas. Definite
commitments on the types and the amounts of amenities to offset that density. To get the density
I would like to see something reasonably tangible discussed regarding not just totlots but, and I
would like to see, I really like residential next to that, to what I'll call the ravined area on the
north and I would really like to see, if possible, access to that parcel by the general public of
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Chanhassen. I think it's a unique asset and I would love to see some way to get to it other than
having to ride a quarter mile bike path to get to it, so. Some sort of commitment on the
applicant's part regarding some of the amenities that they could offer the city in exchange for the
density, then I think there's something a little bit more to talk about as far as a concept plan for
them to take forward to develop, to try to get the densities that they want.
Lillehaug: I have some comments. First of all, I'm willing to go ahead and approve this concept
PUD. We have a lot of direction on how we want to head and how we think you should head, but
I want to explain my understanding of our, of the city's level of commitment and how I view that
level of commitment. I see it as there's a lot of direction here, but if we don't see that this
direction really fits as far as density, as far as the land use in a couple years, it doesn't meet up
with the school, the EAW, it doesn't fit with that, I feel that we would be able to back out of this
commitment based on that. So what I'm trying to explain here is that commitment, it's hard for
us to give commitment and say go ahead and invest a lot of time and money on this because we
want to see a lot before we give a commitment and right now I'm not willing to give a lot of
commitment other than say go ahead with the concept PUD. Maybe that's not very clear but I
guess that's my comments.
Sidney: I'll make a comment here before. I guess I still feel strongly, and I want to express my
view that we may want to table this. Reason being is that I would really like to see these issues
addressed and it doesn't have to be in super detail or anything but at least addressed in a staff
report because I think we run the risk of really losing you know the whole discussion if it's just in
the minutes. And I'm not sure that their corporate or governmental memory is that long. Three
years from now when the commission is different probably.
Sacchet: Most likely.
Sidney: The City Council is completely different and who knows what happens to Chanhassen,
that this discussion's kind of overlooked and you know old staff reports exist and all this
discussion that we've spent you know a lot of time here discussing the issues, you know really
isn't in writing except in the minutes. So I guess I would really like to see these things addressed
in the staff report and that we talk a little bit about it another time.
Sacchet: The balance I think is to table it and address some of these issues. I agree with all the
issues that were raised and I think it's very important the comment you just made LuAnn, that
we're not asking for you to make an exhaustive effort with all these topics, but address them on a
concept level and a high level. And I would also want to ask staff to make recommendations that,
the conditions accordingly. I mean we're not at the level of requiring Type III silt fence. Just to
give you an example.
Aanenson: Right, you want...
Sacchet: Let's keep this whole thing on a high concept level on both sides and make a step,
because the balance, and Steve you pointed this out. It's a delicate thing. I mean it's a give and
take. We're working together on this and we're asking you to actually put some skin in the game
to go do an environmental studies and what have you, and you're looking to us to have some
indication, does that make sense? Is that going to be a reasonable choice for you to make that
investment? And so I think that that aspect that you brought up in terms of commitment aspect,
well there is a balance in there. And right now I think we need some of these things addressed on
a high level to be able to give you the indication, yes. It makes sense for you to go make that
investment. So I would say tabling is the way to go right now.
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Sidney: Okay, any other?
Sacchet: The applicant.
Sidney: Well I think we're done here with our discussion.
Krista Flemming: I guess what, if you do decide to table tonight what I would recommend is, is
going and taking a look at different projects throughout the Minneapolis area and seeing what
things strike your eye as being good residential development and good park and open space
development, connectivity and maybe bring back some of those suggestions so that we can even
take it back to a more detail possibly at the next meeting, and I think that's what this meeting
tonight was about. We have gotten clear direction from you, even though it's been confusing
sometimes but it's.
Sacchet: You're very kind.
Krista Flemming: It's obvious that you're concerned with development and you want to make a
good decision, not just a hasty decision so we're willing to work with you on that.
Sidney: Okay. Are we ready for a motion?
Sacchet: Madam Chair, I'd like to make the motion that we table, how do we call this? The
Town and Country conceptual PUD for 88 ½ acres of property for 540 residential units with, on
the basis of our discussion. As discussed.
Feik: I'll second.
Sacchet moved, Feik seconded that the Planning Commission table #2002-3 PUD,
conceptual PUD request for Town and Country Homes per the discussion. All voted in
favor and the motion carried unanimously 6 to 0.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Lillehaug: I think there's a, is there an error on the vote?
Sacchet: Yes there is. There is definitely an amendment to the.
Lillehaug: I don't think the names of the votes were counted correctly as far as who voted what.
Sacchet: On page 13. Okay, let's wait til we get her. Thanks for catching that Steve.
Aanenson: What item was that Steve?
Lillehaug: The only item. Actually the two votes we did have.
Aanenson: There was two votes.
Sacchet: On page 13 and 14.
Lillehaug: Page 13 and 15. I think Alison voted the opposite and Uli the opposite.
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Planning Commission Meeting - August 6, 2002
Sacchet: On both votes. We'll get her attention eventually. Nann, we're talking Minutes.
Lillehaug: On pages 13 and 15, Uli and Alison voted the opposite for both votes. So basically
just swap their names.
Sacchet: In both places. Thank you.
Sidney: Anything else? So the minutes have been noted and corrections made.
Steve Lillehaug noted the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated July 16, 2002
amended on pages 13 and 15 to change Blackowiak and Sacchet's vote.
Vice Chair Sidney adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 9:50 p.m.
Submitted by Kate Aanenson
Community Development Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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