Loading...
PC 2007 10 16 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 16, 2007 Chairman McDonald called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Mark Undestad, Jerry McDonald, Kurt Papke, Kevin Dillon, and Kathleen Thomas MEMBERS ABSENT: Debbie Larson and Dan Keefe STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Paul Oehme, City Engineer/Public Works Director; and Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC HEARING: LIFE TIME FITNESS SECOND ADDITION: REQUEST FOR SUBDIVISION APPROVAL FOR THREE LOTS ON PROPERTY LEGALLY DESCRIBED AS LOT 1, BLOCK 1, LIFE TIME FITNESS LOCATED ON THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF HIGHWAYS 5 AND 41 (2901 CORPORATE PLACE). APPLICANT: ALLIANT ENGINEERING, INC. AND LIFE TIME FITNESS, PLANNING CASE 07-24. Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. McDonald: Okay, thank you. I'll start to my left. Mark? Undestad: None over here. Thomas: No. McDonald: None? Papke: As I was looking this over the one question that came to mind is, does this give Life Time, obviously it gives them more flexibility to sell off one of the parcels so if they would decide not to build the second building or whatever. Can you allude today a little bit about how much flexibility this actually gives them. Could they turn around after we grant this, sell off the remaining parcel that they currently intend to build a building on and we could end up with something completely different there? Generous: Well all three buildings are currently under construction so they will have those in place. Theoretically they could sell off one of the buildings, or the lot with the building on it that someone would take over, but then they would still be governed by the PUD standards that says they can have offices there and a fitness center. Papke: Okay. Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 Aanenson: Let me just add one other point on that and that, because you have a single owner and they have a vested interest in protecting their views and their visibility, I think that's the level of protection. They've indicated as they move forward they may lease some of that as they build into that so there is that possibility but I think for their control of their visibility and their architecture that they have on the other buildings, they'd probably at least still mirror that building. While it may be sold off would probably architecturally be pretty close to what it is. Generous: If you will also, it's my understanding they intend to occupy the first office building this, by the end of November this year. Start occupancy. The second one is under construction so both office buildings and I believe it's their intention by the end of next year to occupy that second building. Dillon: No questions here. McDonald: I have no questions either and I guess at this point, is there an application to come forward and speak on this or has city staff pretty much done all that? Generous: I believe they looked at the staff report and saw that there weren't any issues. We actually have the documents for the final plat already in so. McDonald: Okay. So at that point then I'll bring it back up to the commission for final deliberation and we'll start with Kevin. Dillon: I don't have any issues with this. I mean I think it will be a good citizen and I can't really see any down side so. McDonald: Okay. Kurt. Papke: It seems that they're within their legal right to do so and… Thomas: No. Undestad: No comments. McDonald: And I have no comments either. This seems pretty easy. Okay. I'll take a motion from the commission. Undestad: I'll make a motion that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the plat creating three lots, Life Time Fitness Second Addition, plans prepared by Alliant Engineering, Inc. dated September 14, 2007, subject to conditions 1 through 4. McDonald: Can I have a second? Papke: Second. 2 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 Undestad moved, Papke seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the plat creating three lots (Life Time Fitness Second Addition), plans prepared by Alliant Engineering, Inc., dated September 14, 2007, subject to the following conditions: 1. The right-of-way for the Corporate Place cul-de-sac must be removed from the Life Time Fitness Second Addition plat. 2. Cross-access and cross-parking easements/agreements must be recorded with the plat. 3. The existing sanitary sewer and watermain within the plat will remain privately owned and maintained via easement agreements between adjoining properties recorded with the plat. Secondary utilities that cross property lines shall also be addressed via private, recorded easement agreements between adjoining properties. 4. The Life Time Fitness Second Addition must comply with the Development Design Standards for Arboretum Business Park. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: COMPREHENSIVE PLAN: TRANSPORTATION, SEWER AND WATER ELEMENTS. McDonald: Again these are open meetings and they will remain open until we get to the end to allow comment of anyone who wishes to visit the city's web site or to send letters or to visit city hall itself and talk to anyone but tonight we will be dealing with transportation, sewer and water elements. Staff. Aanenson: Again thank you Mr. Chair. I just want to add a little bit more to that. For our residents that may be watching at home, the draft of the entire comprehensive plan is on the city's web site so I encourage anybody that may be listening to part of this discussion that wants to learn a little bit more about the specific topics, to go to the city's web site under what's new, under the comprehensive plan. All the chapters are enumerated. They have that opportunity. st And certainly while the hearing is continuing, it's out for public comment until April 1 so if they have questions that they want to speak to, the appropriate person is the city engineer, public works director or myself or anybody else on staff that would certainly be appropriate to do. So with that we do have Paul Oehme, the City Engineer here to speak to the sewer and water and then Bob Generous will be presenting transportation. Again the goal here is to just kind of give you a, kind of the high points. There's a lot of minutia but I think just to give our residents and yourself an education on kind of where we're going with the sewer and water which the sewer plan also ties into certainly the MUSA phasing so as we get into land, just to see how those two tie together so with that I'll turn it over to Paul and Bob. Generous: Okay. Chapter 7 of the comprehensive plan deals with the transportation element. The beginning of it, the transportation element identifies the density and distribution of land uses in the community and their relationship to our transportation system. It provides a functional 3 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 hierarchy of roadways for our community. It looks at system improvements that will be required within the community and looks at transit services that will be available and finally it looks at an implementation program. The chapter's actually divided into 6 portions. You have the goals and policies, the land use, MUSA staging and projections, the existing systems, the forecast, alternate modes of transportation or transit, and implementation of goals and policies. The City of Chanhassen fits into, is in the southwest quadrant of the metropolitan area. We're served by several state highways and the new Highway 212 which cuts through the middle of our community. The overall goal for the city of Chanhassen in transportation is to provide a multi- modal. That means trucks, cars, trains, buses, motor scooters, bikes, pedestrian transportation system for the safe, efficient and effective movement of people and goods, taking into account of land uses and our development plans for the community and also the metropolitan and MnDot's transportation system, as well as the county system. And this is spelled out in the very beginning of it. To do this we look at the 6 general policies that are broken out in the comp plan. We go through general policies and I should point out if you like lists, the transportation element is a great element to look through because there's a lot of lists in that. One is the general policies and the policies related to road redesign. There's policies related to use of transit. Policies related to parking requirements for development. Policies for the pedestrian and bicycle system and also there's some miscellaneous policies included in the comp plan. However in developing the projection for this we relied on the Metropolitan Council's 2030 population projections. It looks at population, households and employment. We then break this down in our community into what's called transportation analysis zones and these look at sub areas of the community. As far as our plan is, our numbers are slightly different from the Met Council's numbers. Due to the land use changes that we're proposing, we believe that there'll be a higher employment number. Additionally we think that the household numbers are high for what our eventual build-out is, and also the population numbers are high. However from a planning standpoint we use these numbers to, our the Carver County use these numbers in creating a 2030 transportation projections. However we also need to look at our existing system and one of the maps within the comp plan deals with the existing traffic volumes. These are based on traffic counts that the city engineering department took over the summer months for our local street system and also numbers on the regional system that were contained within the Carver County Draft Transportation Plan. I know it's difficult to see at this scale. It tries to break the community, all the community down and all our significant roadways so you can see what the current numbers are in each of the roadway segments. In addition to that we look at our existing system and what we project to be our system and look at what are the potential deficiencies we have. What these include are intersection deficiencies. That's generally turning movements that are delayed or there's long queues that are required, especially during peak hour. One of the examples of that would be at Pleasant View and 101. If you've ever been in that part of the community to make a left turn during rush hour, there's often long waits with people so there are some improvements that would improve the operation of that intersection. You also look at system connections and a good example of that is Powers Boulevard. In Chanhassen we have this wide roadway system that goes up to the corporate limits and then you run into Shorewood and you have designs that are slightly different. The roadway, it narrows down. Houses are closer to the roadway and so it really is a whole different transportation environment. You have capacity issues. Lyman Boulevard is an example of that. It's a 2 lane facility but there's enough traffic on it that it could use 4 lane to improve traffic operations. And you have geometric and safety considerations. A good example of that is Highway 101 south of Lyman Boulevard where we have sharp curves 4 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 and horizontal curves that aren't very conducive to traffic movement, so these are all things that we look up and there's a whole list of improvements that the city would need to make to improve our overall transportation system. Here's an example of some improvements that are currently under construction that will help the city's operation and this is the 101 and Highway 212 interchange and Lyman Boulevard upgrade. This will improve the traffic operation in that location. Another project we're looking at in conjunction with Carver County and Chaska is an upgrade to Lyman Boulevard. This improvement actually has to be done in conjunction with the opening of the new high school in the fall of 2009. And then from that, as part of the forecast that the Carver County used in their transportation plan they have 3 system improvements that were very critical. The first one that, assumption was that Highway 41 from Highway 5 to the Scott County boundary would be 4 lane. The second assumption was that Trunk Highway 101 from Lyman Boulevard to Scott County would also be 4 lane and the third one would be at Lyman Boulevard from Highway 41 to the 101 roadway intersection would also be 4 lane. And so that was the assumption they used in making these projections and distribution of trips within the community and within actually Carver County. So from all of that we looked at creating a functional classification system for a roadway system. The principal arterials are our largest roadway systems. There's only two of them proposed as part of our map. The new Highway 212 and Highway 7. They provide long range trips and they're usually freeway design. Then you have your arterial roadways. For Chanhassen they're all the state highways and many of the county roads. Then you have your collector roadways which are more local, larger system improvements for the city but they're on a smaller scale. They'll connect neighborhoods to an arterial system. And then the final thing is your local roadways. Oh I should back up. I did give you a new map as part of the existing deficiencies. The narrative described all the things that were shown on there, but in the map that you have in your book, we list the 2010 MUSA area, east/west connection and the Bluff Creek Golf Course connection, as well as the point to show that Powers Boulevard at Highway 5 has some intersection problems. And so if you just want to take out your old pages and put that in, that's the replacement for that. Then next, part of a transportation system you also have to look at transit. The City of Chanhassen is an opt out community. We're a member of Southwest Transit. It provides local circulator system, as well as express service and reverse commute service. There's also CART that provides another transit opportunity. That's an on demand type of service. Additionally in conjunction with the Met Council and the County, they're doing studies on doing light rail transit out to the southwest corridor. It's one of 6 corridors that are being studied as part of future transportation improvements. The closer in southwest suburbs are in a closer stage of development. They're going to be more environmental impact statement review. For Chanhassen and out west we're looking at more a feasibility to see if it would be feasible and worth while to extend it. As part of transit, light rail transit service to Chanhassen, they're actually looking at the Highway, new Highway 212 corridor to put it within the right-of-way to serve this area and out through Chaska and out to Carver potentially. If that study shows feasible, we did request that the Met Council also continue to look at the southerly Hennepin County Regional Rail Authority right-of-way, that trail system down in the southern part of Chanhassen to see if also that would be, that could be a feasible alternative. Then the second thing that we're looking at as part of the rail transit would be within the Twin Cities and Western Railroad. This is a system that will go from Minneapolis out to Glencoe and potentially even out further if the, as the area continues to grow into the future. Twin Cities and Western Railroad is very involved in this and they would like to see this happen and so we hope as part of the study we did request that the Met Council look at 5 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 the downtown area of Chanhassen as any default within our community so that's, we told them to change their focus for looking at a stop there. And then as we continue in the future, some of the important roadways that we're looking at is south 101 and we recently completed a study to come up with the preferred alignment, and that is, it's called the central alignment and the first part of it from Lyman to Pioneer would create, clean up some of the vertical and horizontal curves. And this is one that we're looking at having the improvements done in conjunction with the MUSA extension to like 2010 MUSA area. The second part of that would be from Pioneer down to Lakota and ultimately down through the Minnesota River valley and then to Scott County, and it's also looking at taking out some of the significant curved areas to make it operate as a better commuter route. It also looks at additional local street connections into that roadway. As part of this we've also, and it comes up in the land use, looked at connections to the west of Bluff Creek Golf Course. If there's any future development, a redevelopment of that area. We're also working in conjunction with the Victoria, Waconia, Carver County, Norwood-Young America on a study to extend Highway 5, a four lane Highway 5 west of the community. If you've ever gone out Highway 5, once you hit 41 it sort of backs up there and gets very congested. And finally they're looking at, they've been in the process for about 4 years a new river crossing. It's actually been in process a lot longer but they've been doing the draft environmental impact study for it. It came down to they're looking at 3, 6 different alignments for crossing the river. By the end of this year MnDot and the federal highway department are looking at recommending a preferred alignment for that river crossing. The City of Chanhassen supports a river crossing and we're working in conjunction with these other communities to come up with that preferred alignment. However this wouldn't be built until another 30 years, if we're lucky. So that's it. The transportation element worked in conjunction with everything else. The final thing that we have in it is actually the capital improvement program. It shows the significant roadways improvements that would be required and gives an estimate of the costs for that. It looks at how to implement our comprehensive plan which goes back to the list of all the improvements that we have. Many of the things the community does are done on an, as development takes place. We're looking at the new connector roadway and that's one of the changes in our transportation system. It's currently shown as a collector and we're going to take that out because it's really just, provides a connection from 101 to Powers Boulevard. Aanenson: Bob, can you show that on that map. That was it wasn't it? Generous: No, that was a deficiency. There it is. And it's hard to see on that but if you look west of Lake Riley there's a serpentine road that goes from about Bandimere Park over to Powers Boulevard. And so that really, it won't have enough traffic to justify being a collector roadway and also we're looking at multiple access points for that area so we don't anticipate more than 4,000 trips within that area coming out so it wouldn't be justified to have it, it will be a local street system. And so that's the only change in the classification system that we're looking at. There's also discussion as part of the comp plan about some turn back projects. Galpin Boulevard north of Highway 5 is currently a county road but it really serves as a local function and so the county's looking at turning that back to the city. Highway, potentially Highway 5 and Flying Cloud Drive will go back from MnDot to Carver County if these other improvements ever get done so, that's the whole thing that it's looking at. With that we are recommending approval of the draft transportation element subject to those changes that I pointed out today and be happy to answer any questions. 6 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 McDonald: Okay, thank you. Kevin. Dillon: No, I don't have any questions. That was a nice presentation. Thank you. McDonald: Okay. Kurt. Papke: One of the difficulties with transportation part of the comprehensive plan is what Chanhassen can do is so intimately interwoven with what the county's going to do or the state is going to do and so you know you read through the transportation plan and you compare the specificity of what's in that plan versus the sewer and water plan, and it's a world of difference. You kind of take the 46 pages and it kind of boils down to the capital improvements table at the end there. You know that's really what the City has control over, if I read this correctly. Could you point out a couple of the highlights in that nifty little table at the end, like what's the $20 million for 101 corridor planning in 2015. Is that, does this mean we're going to do one piece of, the Phase I of 101 for $7 million in 2010 and Phase II for $20 million 2015 or how do I read? You know the real meat of the whole plan is what are you going to spend your money on. What are your priorities and so if you could spell out what some of those things are in that table, I think that would be helpful. Not just here for the group but maybe in the text or something like that so people can look at that and say okay, what does that $20 million bucks going to go for. Generous: It is indirectly, you're correct in that, those two slides that I showed, the Lyman to Pioneer would be that $7 million project and that's just an estimate of the cost. We don't, it's not been designed or anything. But we wanted to show that approximately in 2010 when that MUSA area opens up, we need to look at improving 101 in that area to accommodate the additional trips that will be on our system. Papke: Alright. Generous: And then the second, in 2015 we're looking at opening up a new MUSA area and we would anticipate that we would need to have 101 improvements down to and including anything at Flying Cloud Drive which will be new County Road 61. Have improvements that take it from Pioneer down to there. And so this just gives you a general magnitude and timing for those improvements. It wouldn't all be Chanhassen money. It's probably mostly MnDot and Carver County but to get things going the City's going to have improvements that we'll require as part of this with trails and maybe boulevard improvements that aren't covered under either the county or MnDot's budgeting. Papke: Typically when residents you know read through this kind of stuff, they want to know when are you going to fix 101 or when are you going to fix Lyman and what are you going to do and so I think it would really be helpful if we could spell out you know what all those things are in that table there because I think the questions will inevitably be asked so might as well nit it in the bud and just put it right in the plan. That's my two cents worth. Aanenson: No, I think that's a good comment. I think if you look under, we've identified the deficiencies. I think what's lacking is a prioritization and I think you see how they all interlink 7 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 together. The sewer, the water, the transportation and we've clearly pointed out, we need 101 upgraded for us to continue to march south because that's the main artery to get over the river. If you look at, we can do some additional development north of Pioneer Trail. When you get south without that, that's the only way down. Papke: That brings up a really good point. You know sometimes it's tough to see when you organize the comp plan into these silos. We've got the transportation plan. We've got the water and sewer plan. We've got the parks plan. But ultimately all these things are inter-dependent and…help residents try to understand that someway but boy it sure would be great if we could find someway of showing the people you know, you know we're building, we're spending the 20 million bucks in 2015 because we need the water and sewer that's over in this other section over here. You know if it was on the internet you'd have this be a hyperlink over to that other process or something like that. But this is paper and we can't do that. Aanenson: And you point out the real challenge of planning when we try to work together and to figure out the prioritization. We did put together, which is going out here shortly, a neighborhood meeting of about 250 people around the Bluff Creek area because that's one of the areas, the biggest zone of change when we look at the MUSA phasing. Part of what the City Engineer Paul Oehme's going to talk about tonight is we've identified bringing sewer into all large lots. Not that it's our goal today but if we had to provide service for that, so we want to talk to the residents in an open house forum before we have the land use to throw those, the MUSA phasing. How that's going to affect them. The improvements to 101 and whether or not, how that relates to when their property can develop. As Paul worked through that 101 corridor study, a lot of those residents along there were concerned when can I subdivide. When can I get access, and it's all depending on when we get sewer which is related to when we can upgrade the road and so it is, they're all interlinked and you're right, when you look at each chapter you don't see that and that's kind of a communication tool so those are good comments that we need to see how we can maybe make those bridges tie together so. Papke: Yeah, maybe a table somewhere in the text you know with one column for the water and one column for the sewer and the road you know. Where the projects are intertwined or something like that you know kind of mapping everything together I think would be really helpful. Generous: There isn't a map but in Chapter 10 under capital improvements it combines all the different elements and if you look down the…you can see how sewer and water and storm water and parks are all seem to be related and the roadway system. Papke: Thanks. Thomas: I don't have any questions at the time but I thought the presentation was quite informative. Thank you. McDonald: Mark. Undestad: Nothing. 8 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 McDonald: I guess the only comments I have you know kind of dove tail into what Kurt's talking about. You've done a very good job of laying out I think the big picture of what we're looking at for transportation and the things we're facing but within the community there's a couple of hot spots that didn't even come up and, or maybe they did and we haven't said much but I think it should be addressed. What I'm thinking of is Minnewashta Parkway. The entrance south onto Highway 5 and north onto Highway 7. I understand that the State's involved in that but you know something I think there for, what are we going to do with that? What are we working on? What are we involved in that there's progress being made that you know we're not just forgetting that. We may not be able to do anything because of these other things but you know something to show that it's on our radar. The other one is 101 north of Highway 5. At the north end it's a 4 lane highway. You get down here, we're looking at a 4 lane highway through Chan but in that stretch it's 2 lanes and you know it gets traveled pretty heavily and been a lot of complaints on that one. There's nothing here. I mean it's the individual little projects because there's certain hot spots around the city that I think people are concerned about and what are we going to do? Are we just going to ignore these areas? Why? I know there may be very good reasons but you know I think that something such as that you know going along with what Kurt had said, a little bit more detail on a couple of these projects as to what's going on but from the broad perspective yeah, it's an excellent thing that shows where we're at within the city. And I guess the other question I've got deals with Bluff Creek. When you mentioned that, does that include doing the connection between the new, I forget what the road's called but it goes from the K. Hovnanian development all the way through and should tie in over there to Powers Boulevard. Is that part of what we're looking at also? Generous: Yes, that's part of the system deficiencies and there's a narrative in there. McDonald: Okay. Generous: If you look at that map there's actually paragraphs on each of those little things and so people can… McDonald: Not at Minnewashta and Highways 5 and 7. Didn't find anything. Aanenson: …They're on page 7-10. But I think you did mention one that might not have been on there. The 101 north. You had mentioned. I think most of them are. Generous: It's in the, on page… Aanenson: But if there is something you wanted to address, certainly. McDonald: Well there's a lot of people who have. Aanenson: This is the place to put it. 9 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 McDonald: Yeah, people have certain complaints about transportation. It's just I know that those are big hot spots and I'm surprised nobody has said anything to you or anything such as that. Aanenson: I don't know, it's. McDonald: Oh, you have had comments. Aanenson: Yes. Yeah, and they're identified in here as deficient safe, uh huh. McDonald: The only thing I had really, excellent report as far as what is transportation going to look like within the city so thanks. I guess at this point. Aanenson: You want Paul to go ahead and do his before you open it up or? McDonald: Okay. Okay, we'll do that. Okay Paul. Oehme: Okay, thanks. Thank you Chairman and commission members. Just one clarification too on the transportation. Minnewashta, you pointed out Minnewashta deficiencies in Trunk Highway 5. The cities of Victoria, Chanhassen, Waconia, Young America actually are getting together and starting a scoping study of the preliminary design project and we're going to be starting that here in the next couple months. It will be a 9 month process actually to look at future improvements to Trunk Highway 5 from 41 all the way over to 212 so that's definitely something that we'll be putting in the plan and before this plan is actually completed we should have some preliminary ideas of exactly what will take place out there so that is in the works. McDonald: Okay, good. Thank you. Oehme: You bet. Segwaying into the next chapter, Chapter 8 of the comprehensive plan is Sanitary Sewer. Now I don't have exhibits in colorful drawings as Bob has here but more numbers and text than anything else but the sanitary sewer plan is just basically looking at what does our existing sanitary infrastructure look like and what is going to be looking like in, when the city's completed. Fully developed sometime around 2030 so some of the important chapters in the plan just basically review the existing sanitary sewer system and flows. Looking at each of the districts, land use which for each of these areas, commercial, residential, different aspects of land use definitely plan a role in the size and capacity of their sanitary sewer system. The growth of the other community sanitary sewer districts, again the capacity's for each of those existing in future areas. We also did look at the inflow infiltration issues that we have here in the city. Met Council is really pushing cities to try to reduce the amount of clear water or surface water, ground water, or ground water going into the sanitary sewer system right now because it does take away capacity from their existing system for future development too. We also did look at the future sanitary sewer system, what it may look like here in the 5, 10, 15 year timeframe. And we also put a capital improvement plan together projecting what some of the costs might look like. The purpose of the plan is to provide the city with an updated plan, sanitary sewer plan for future development areas and put in an orderly and cost effective way and then also to identify existing deficiencies in our system. So I'm just going to run through a couple pages in 10 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 the report. Just kind of summarizing some of the highlights. Staff did look at the existing infrastructure. Again lift stations play an important role in our sanitary sewer system. Currently in the city of Chanhassen we have 31 lift stations. That's you know more than some typical cities but where cities see a lot of topography changes and a lot of residential properties around lakes, we see a lot more sanitary lift stations. And you know the city has been growing over the years and we do have some older stations that we have been trying to improve and upgrade in the last couple years. What we did here in this plan is to look at all the lift stations and look at future needs for each of those, either if it's, is it new pumps or new electrical panels, force mains, those type of things. You know you do, and this infrastructure does not last forever so we would, we're looking at putting a program together to replace these, this infrastructure when it's life expectancy is up just to, for reliability purposes reduce emergency call out's and potentially reduce sewer back-up's into residential or commercial properties. So we do have a plan for that. We did look at existing and future capacities for each of these lift stations as well. We did identify a few minor issues that we're going to be taking a look at here in the near future. We did look at again the population projections that Bob had talked about from the Met Council looked at you know those, that information. Also the commercial, residential, industrial uses just potentially that would be here in the city. That does definitely play a role in how we size and future capacities for our sanitary sewer system. From those numbers if we look back 10 years basically in terms of what the water usages for the city was and the sewer flow that we've seen here in the city, the sewer flow is basically we pay Met Council for the use of their infrastructure. Their trunk main that take the sanitary sewer down to Shakopee and treat the sewer there so we do pay a quarterly bill for Met Council for that so we do have those numbers. We kind of relate them back to what our water usage is and looked at you know per capita, per day flows. For residential use. You know negating the commercial aspects so. On average right now we're about 83-84 gallons per day which is a little bit higher than Met Council would like us to be at, particularly a city of our size and demographics. They'd like to see us more along the 75 gallons per capital or per day and you know based upon the numbers that we see too, there is some potential savings there for I and I reduction we feel just based upon the numbers that we looked at. From basically the whole report we've more or less summarized all the anticipated improvements here in the next 15-20 years and we're looking at you know $10 million. Now this is a lot of new infrastructure that we're putting in here too and new lift stations. New force mains. New trunk systems so a lot of that infrastructure would be paid for by new development connection charges. Development fees. What have you so it's not all beared by existing residents so again we did look at improvements to existing lift stations. Try to put together a capital improvements plan for improving those stations to make them more reliable so. From that working with the planning department we did look at the future MUSA staging. This drawing here shows what we're looking at for 2010 and 2015. Granted you know these areas do not all have to be serviced by 2015. It's more development driven. Residential existing property owner driven. We're just saying you know once, when these areas open up, there potentially would be sewer and water available at that and granted you don't have, you might have to work through some of your neighbors and collectively approach the city on a project but what we're saying here is that potentially in 5 to 10 years sewer and water potentially will be available throughout the city. And again it all relates back to the transportation and other infrastructure needs for, before the sewer would be extended down to these areas so. Here's just a drawing showing what existing system and districts look like. Break out basically the whole city into little sub, I'm going to call them watershed districts or sewer districts. These are the areas that 11 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 just flow into the trunk system. We've identified all the existing lift stations of potentially future lift stations and identified where those can be. A lot of the new infrastructure too that's not in the MUSA area, we've identified you know sewer for example the Minnewashta over by, just south of Dogwood Road there. There's existing 5 large lot properties there that are on well and septic right now and potentially those properties could come in and request that the city extend sewer and water to those lots at this time so we'd have to get a lift station that would have to be constructed or a force main, gravity sanitary sewer that would have to be improved there. And that's an example of a property owner develop a project. The City would not participate in any of that infrastructure at this time that are practiced. Aanenson: Paul, while you're on this map I just want to remind the Planning Commission that a lift station was identified at Powers Boulevard. If you remember we did a wetland permit on that. Right off of Powers Boulevard north of Pioneer Trail. We went out and looked at that. Oehme: Just south of 212. Aanenson: And when the 212 project was put in place anticipating those improvements, when they get the MUSA it was some of those improvements were sleeved underneath so those are set in place and that's the reason why we looked at the MUSA, I just want to explain that, and you'll see that when we come back to land use how these all weave together. So in looking at that, you've got that area kind of between 101 and Powers Boulevard, south of Lyman down to Pioneer and in looking at that, was that enough to service that area. Wait 15 years as Paul indicated kind of development driven. If somebody wants to advance that, once that lift station's there, if you look at those sub districts because it can serve as a larger area. That's how we went back and adjusted that MUSA, and that's going back to kind of why we're having that neighborhood meeting with that larger area to explain some of that to the residents down there. Oehme: Yeah, and Met Council just requested all these plans, comprehensive plans show the, how potentially the city, the whole city, 100% of the city could be serviced in the future. It's not saying that it will be serviced in the future. It's just showing how it can be serviced. Aanenson: Yep, and also we want to provide an option as some of those lots were put in with one, we know the…but some of them only have one drain field site so it gives an option for a residence that we built it into the financial model so we'll communicate that too to some of those areas that may not be able to find an appropriate other drain field site so it's just an option. Oehme: So that is a quick overview of the sanitary comprehensive plan, the draft. If you'd like I could go right into the water and save questions for later or. McDonald: Yeah, unless they have questions. Papke: I've got one before we, maybe before we go any farther. Correct me if I'm wrong but the MUSA expansion area, this is a radical change from the last time I saw this map. I mean the last time I saw a MUSA map, southern Chanhassen, at least where I live was 2020. Aanenson: Correct. 12 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 Papke: And now I'm 2010 and I don't have any problem with that. You know I think this is a good goal but you know I, this is a question I get asked a lot. There's a lot of us in southern Chanhassen that are on septic and well and we're always curious well, you know when, there's half the people that well when can I get sewer and water and there's the other half you know, when are they going to try to shove sewer and water down my throat because I'm going to fight it you know every inch of the way. But suffice it to say that this is going to, it probably will cause a reaction and there really isn't any narrative in the comp plan saying you know, this is a radical change and this is why we're doing it. Aanenson: Sure. It's in the land use section. You raise a good point and I'll go back to that's why we're having that neighborhood meeting to format that. The comprehensive plan is a land use element suggests under large lot, it's not the city goal to, that's a life style choice and we want to preserve and protect that, and the council stood behind that when we've done other projects. For example on Lake Lucy they avoided running the sewer through that, but we have included that as the City Engineer indicated, that for a financial model, if somebody did want to. Now it's not our goal to change the character of the neighborhood. What we've said is if those neighbors want to change as a whole and come in and say we don't want, no longer want to be large lots. That'd be something, but we don't intend to just take one lot 11 to subdivide and change the character of the neighborhood. Unless say someone has a failing system and there's a way that they can pay and get onto the system, we'll accommodate that. Papke: I think most people understand you know that's how the game is played. The only point I was trying to make is, this is a radical change from what most people have seen before and even when I went, read through the land use section, I didn't, maybe I glossed over it but I didn't. Aanenson: It's there. Papke: It is? Aanenson: It is there. It was in there the last iteration too and that's again why we're having the neighborhood meeting. If you look again going back to where that lift station's put in place off of Powers Boulevard, it's looking at the financial models. It didn't seem like that was enough to hold us over the next 5 to 10 years in today's economy with the slow down in residential, it may, but we want to provide that opportunity if someone wanted to leap frog over because that lift station with the pipe being put in place, we're paying ourselves back. For development. So if someone was to advance and wanted to go south and if they wanted to pay, obviously there's infrastructure improvements. Need to get a roadway. For example that might be the golf course property. But they would have to provide access and then all, that ties back to what we've talked about, all those layers need to work together. So it just gives more options for development. And that's really what that's about, and again that's why we're going to have that meeting on th November 5 with the residents down there to communicate this to them. If you look at what was involved in, as I said before between Powers and 101, there's just not a lot of payback for that. You have a number on that Paul, approximately what we think that lift station. 13 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 Oehme: Oh, just the lift station alone is about $2 million. Significant infrastructure improvement because basically everything south of there will eventually flow into that lift station and into the trunk main that runs north on 101. There's a Met Council line so. Aanenson: Yeah. So really until we got the sewer model back and looked at those numbers, then we had to go back and say, does it make sense to keep our MUSA line the way it was, and that's where that shift came in. That's why I want to go back and let the residents understand that. Communicate just what we're telling you tonight. Those same sort of things. Papke: I'm looking at the land use section you know and it does show the MUSA and that in there and it does comment on MUSA impact on existing lots and all that kind of good stuff and MUSA staging. But it still, I'm still not. Aanenson: If you look under the large lot sections. Let's go to that. If not I'd be happy to make sure that that's clear. If you look under residential large lot. Papke: What page are you on? Aanenson: I'm on page 2 of 5. Papke: The end of 251. Aanenson: Oh. Well did you read 2.14? Is that what you're reading is the staging? Papke: Yeah. Give it some thought. You know all I'm saying is this is a C change. Aanenson: Yeah, I need to make sure that what we had in there before is saying. Papke: You know reading this you know I was, I kept asking myself my gosh, this is a big strategic change in the city and I kind of anticipated some verbiage or something saying you know we've decided that you know it should be our goal that everything's within MUSA by 2015 or something like that. Aanenson: Here it is on page 2013. What it says is that large lot subdivisions that do not have sewer and water shall be allowed to remain as it without requiring urban services even within the MUSA area until the majority residents state that they want to change their use. Smallest lots in these subdivisions are 2 1/2 acres so that's what they've bought into so. Papke: Yeah we're you know, we're spelling out, again we're spelling out the rules of the game but. Aanenson: So you want me to philosophically talk about more in the MUSA phases, staging? Papke: Yeah. I mean it is a radical change from the previous MUSA plan that we, and you would think we would want to say something in here to the effect of well, here's why we're doing 14 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 this. Or you know, and I think we explain the consequences and the fact that we're not going to be forcing this on people. I think you covered that part real well. Aanenson: Yeah I think the challenge is when you get down to that southern area there's large lot pockets that we have to work around. Papke: Right. Aanenson: Driving up the cost. And really that's a life style choice but I hear what you're saying. We need to make sure that it's clear on the plan that the goal is we're bringing a larger area to pay for that but still let those people that chose that large lot life style. They're platted, approved subdivisions to stay that way. Papke: Yeah, because from a financial perspective, you know if we're paying $2 million bucks for a lift station, that's a large financial commitment on the part of the city to try to accelerate you know initially we're moving up at least for where I live by 10 years. When we're putting in water and sewer and that's a cash flow situation for the city and you would think that the comp plan would speak to that decision to invest that money earlier on. Aanenson: Good point. McDonald: Any other points or comments? Okay, then we'll turn it back to staff to continue on. Oehme: Okay. Next we'll move to the water chapter. Chapter 9. Just again just hit some highlights in the plan here. Water, portable water plant. Basically the plan incorporates a lot of the same information that the sanitary sewer plan did. We use the existing infrastructure, the wells, powers and distribution main. Review the current water demand and some trends that we have here in the city. We also looked again at the land use, growth projections. Projected for future water demands for the city and we modeled the water system for statically long term fire flows in the system and look for deficiencies there as well. And then we also again looked at what it's going to take to develop future districts, MUSA areas in, within the city and costs associated with that. We're putting the capital improvement plan. Again the purpose of the plan is similar to sanitary plan. Provide the city with an updated plan to service the future development areas in an orderly and cost effective way. Identify system deficiencies that we have currently. So going through the plan, again we looked back 10 years approximately and what the city looked like population and development wise. And water demand, both average day demand and then also max day demand. The system has to be designed for a max day demand to facilitate irrigation systems and lawn sprinkling and just residential use, both in the summer peak demand periods so once we had all that data identified we look at peak factors. Basically what the city system needs for those max day demands. Basically quantify exactly what a peak factor is from basically from the average day to the max date and right now we're about 3.1 average. It does fluctuate on a yearly basis but as the city grows, that peak factor may typically, it gets relatively stable. We are right now at about what, 3.1 peak factor which is a little bit higher than the DNR would like to see us at but again we do have a lot of large lots. We do have a lot of infrastructure, irrigation systems in the city so they do use quite a bit of water during the summer months. Here's a figure just showing what our average day demand has been 15 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 over the last say 20 years. So it has been going up at a regular basis. This graph shows what we looked back in 2006 and looked at what our peak demand day was and we graphed out what the hourly demand was and this graph shows on an hourly basis what the demand was. On the vertical access it shows what the percentage of demand is versus compared to our capacity at that time with all 10 wells. With all of the 10 wells so basically at 100%, all of our wells are going off and putting as much water into the system as you can so you can see that at basically 4:00 in the morning we're only using approximately half of our wells but when we get into you know 8:00 in the morning, there's a lot of irrigation systems going off and actually as you get later in the day we, the wells basically are at full capacity and we're actually drawing down our well, or our towers at that time so basically during the day, so once we get to the max time during the morning hours which are right around 9:00 or 10:00. After that it does decrease somewhat and then shoots right back up again at 6:00 in the afternoon when people come home after work and start irrigating again so you know what this is showing is that you know, we'd like to have a little bit of a let down in the midday timeframe…one, our towers to catch up and two, for maybe our wells and our aquifers to get a little rest before the afternoon peak period too so. And the DNR you know does have some recommendations on how to trim off some of the peak periods during the afternoon timeframe too so we're looking at you know trying to look at some conservation measures here in the near future to try to have a system that both is you know, can meet the demands of the city but yet address some of the concerns that we have infrastructure wise to, so we're not having to put up huge towers or having to put in additional wells to accommodate the peak demand periods. So we did look again at the existing system. We did model the system for fire flow demands and ISO means insurance service office which we get our insurance through has recommendations on residential and commercial units and what typical fire flows, fire flows they would like to see in those areas. I'd happy to report that the city does have a pretty good system in terms of when fire flows are needed, we can accommodate those type of systems. We did identify 3 areas within the city. One is basically can be addressed in future developments taking place north of 7. The Landscape Arboretum, those existing new buildings are heavily irrigated so the fire marshal feels confident about that system being adequate. And also a little development down in Coulter Boulevard which talking about with the fire marshal, we do have adequate fire hydrant capability out in that area to tap into a trunk line to accommodate any fire issues out in that area so all those areas have or will be addressed in the future by future developments. Again we looked at what the city potentially could look like in the future, both 5, 10, 15, 20 years out. Identified what the zoning and future land uses would be. Plugged in approximately land uses and looking at standard tables that the city has for each type of land use or residential use or office industrial type of components. We can pretty well identify what our future demands will be here in the city. You know even if a shopping mall down on Lyman Boulevard will take place, we feel confident that the, it's not a dramatic change in what we are projecting our needs would be to accommodate a facility such as that nature. We did look at again the well situation that we have here in the city. You're well aware we did have some problems with a couple of our wells here in the city. We're looking at addressing that issue this winter into the next spring so we did look at our capacities of existing wells that we have right now and projected out what our anticipated needs for our wells would be to supply demand for the city so. Looked at all that and looked at the total capacity versus the firm capacity which firm capacity basically identifies what the system would look like if one of your major wells would be down for service or had some problems so that's the firm capacities and you want to base your system around. And we also looked at you know treatment facility sizes needed for 16 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 the west water treatment plant. Based upon that information we rolled all of the needs and for new infrastructuring to a capital improvements plan again. You know in the next 15 years we're looking at approximately $32 million worth of new infrastructure and we're getting a lot of this infrastructure related to developments. New wells. New storage tank facilities. New trunk mains. Those type of things. Those will all be infrastructure costs that would be paid through by connection charges rolled into our rate structure that we currently have so no new surprises here. And based upon that information, you had me look at the, what the future trunk system would look like, both pipe wise and wells and towers so we've identified corridors for the future watermains, lines, sizes based upon models and the zoning and the land use that we're looking at. We've identified two potential locations for low zone water tower. We're looking at needing in probably around the 20, 10 to 20, 15 timeframe a new 1 million gallon water tower in the low zone. Identified two locations. One, first option would be on Powers Boulevard. Another option would be on Lyman someplace so, and those would be development driven. Need, putting that infrastructure up when it's needed. And then we'd also have a need for a new water tower in the high zone and the only opportunity that we see right now for a new water tower is on the existing site of the Melody Hills tower. Right now that tower's about 200,000 gallons and we're projecting we're needing about 750,000 gallons for that station. So we've identified and purchased land actually for the west water treatment plant site on Galpin Boulevard in the last 3 years here now so that's been addressed. And so this map just shows what the existing infrastructure looks like and where new infrastructure potentially would go. And again in this chapter we're just showing what the MUSA staging areas would potentially look like so. That's quickly what the water comprehensive plan includes. If you have any questions relating to this chapter as well, I'd be more than happy to try to answer them. McDonald: Do we want to do questions on this or we'll go for the public comment first. Papke: I've got one. McDonald: Okay, go ahead. Papke: I'm on a roll tonight. Aanenson: Good, we like comments. Before I came to the meeting tonight while I was watching the evening news, it was all about Atlanta and their water supply drying up and we've had two wells go dry and the aquifer's dropping and, maybe I missed it but I think the water section here does a great job of you know, here's what we're going to, here's all the capital improvements we're going to do. Here's our build out strategy, but I didn't see it and maybe I just glossed over it but I didn't see any commentary of geez, should we be worried about this aquifer? Are there issues? Is this going to cause us to react in some way? Did I miss it or? McDonald: No, you kind of stole my thunder too because I didn't see it. You know that was the one thing I was wondering about too is, do we need to worry about anything? Oehme: And again, the aquifer issue's a regional problem that actually Plymouth and some other surrounding communities are experiencing right now too. You know we did talk about it a little bit in terms of the peak period demands in one of the sections but maybe that's something we can 17 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 hit upon a little bit more in the final draft but it's, it comes back to you know, what's, what's the best route for the city to implement those type of new initiatives? You know it's got to be, you know staff can recommend things but in terms of putting them into a plan and adoption, that's another thing. You know there's a lot of, there's a lot of different view points on how we should be using our water right now so. You know it's one thing that maybe we didn't stress hard enough but maybe we should in the future. I mean we've got a laundry list of things that we'd like to start taking a look at and trying to implement but. Papke: To that point the, about how we use our water. The other thing I didn't see in here was, are we going to put anything in the comp plan about how we're going to encourage future conservation or what kind of guidelines we're going to put in place? I mean we're all, we've all become accustomed to the you know annual summer watering bans. Are we going to try to stress that more in the future? Are we going to try to beef up our capacity so we don't have to do that anymore? Are we going to try to do some conservation education programs? You know you'd think somewhere within the water plan we'd want to say something about what we're going to do to manage the demand side. McDonald: Yeah, if I can just interrupt on that. I mean the one thing I noticed is, you've got the numbers as to what the peaks are and everything. The question becomes, can we maintain those and if we can't, what are we going to do. And then part of that is you know we need to educate the public that you've got to get these numbers down, which means yeah, you may not be watering your lawns as much anymore. That should be something that we address. Papke: Because one of the things I know for electricity, I'm on a program where my monthly rates are lower because they put a box on the side of my house that doesn't allow my air conditioner to run at certain peak times. You know should we be doing something like that with the water where we'll take $5 off your water bill if we can throttle back your water demand, or I don't know. You know I'm just throwing out crazy ideas. Oehme: We're looking at all that stuff right now. We're looking at a tiered rate structures right now for the high users. The residential high users because that's really where it comes down to. The high residential users. They should really be paying for a lot of this infrastructure that we have based upon you know and that's where the need is. So we're looking at that. We do have some conservation measures on the web site right now and maybe we should tie some of those issues, the rest of those items into their report. Papke: I think it would be good. You know history has shown that residents often ask a lot of questions, challenging questions on things that are in the news and right now you know water supply's in the news and actually we kind of glossed over this in the transportation plan but bridges falling down are in the news. You know it might behoove us to put a paragraph in there saying you know all of our bridges are shown to you know, we're not going to have any bridges falling down in the next 10 years or something like that. You know what I'm saying? Aanenson: Yeah. Well I think you raise a good point and there are regulations of what the DNR expects for kind of the average flow and the council, as Paul said, is discussing this already. We're working, looking at some ordinance revisions. Working with the Environmental 18 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 Commission. We talked about this with some of you know, looking at other ways to get conservation easement. A project comes in. Whether it's industrial or residential. All the landscaping techniques so we don't have to water as much so those are all the things we need to do as we move forward. We can't maintain the same peak going up so all those things are on the table but I think what you're saying is right. We need to put that in the goals. Papke: I think so. Aanenson: To develop policies and ordinances to reduce the demand so I think that maybe needs to be added in in that section. Oehme: We do have an emergency management and conservation plan that the city has and actually we did send that over to the DNR. That has to be updated I think every 3 or 4 years. DNR's already taken a look at. They gave comments back to us. We are going to be visiting with the council on that in the near future too so, I mean we should have this as, that plan as an appendices to this one so we are looking at reviewing that too but we should maybe tie that, tie that into this at this point as well. McDonald: Okay. Aanenson: Good comments. McDonald: Any other questions or comments before I? Well, this is a public meeting so I will open it up to the public and anyone wishing to come forward and speak on either the transportation aspects or the water/sewer aspects can do so now. And I guess seeing no one come forward at this point again we're not going to close the public meetings. They will continue to stay open but you know I would encourage anyone out there with any comments to get in touch with city staff or you know come down to city hall themselves and ask for someone and they'll show you maps and everything. With that I guess I'll bring it back up to the commissioners for any final comments or suggestions if you only have. Kevin, I'll start with you. Dillon: No. I am thankful that he watched the news tonight and brought that up. That's kind of a good one. And yeah, I mean it's very timely. I mean all of us I think faced some burned up grass this summer and we don't want that to happen. But we don't want to be you know water hogs either so anyways. Good presentations and good comments from my fellow commissioners. McDonald: Okay. Kurt? Papke: I've said enough tonight. McDonald: Kathleen? Thomas: No. I don't have any comments. 19 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 McDonald: Mark. Undestad: All said. Good job. McDonald: Well the only other thing I guess I would add that I was holding back on sewers, one of the things that I kind of wonder about that's come up before at the Planning Commission before. When we design for capacity, and I'm not sure quite how to ask this. Are we going to be okay if say our land use were to change? You know how much I guess accommodation do we have within that? Are we okay with the current plan for the lift stations we've got, if that were to all go to single family residential down there, would we be covered and everything and that was something that goes to the water too but I wasn't sure I heard that. Papke: Yeah, I mean we did look at that, especially for the sanitary sewer plan. You know with the regional mall being proposed out there. We did look at capacity for sanitary sewer and water in that area and you know, based upon our analysis for that one, you know actually medium density type of usage would actually be more of a demand on the system than say a regional mall so, just for an example. But you know the data that we have and the projections that we have, there are fudge factors that we place into those calculations so there is some additional capacity always inherently added into the system that we always include so there is some capacity. I'm not saying in every instance that we would not have to recommend some other usage if say a Coca Cola plant would come in or a higher water demand type of thing so. You know all those things we'd definitely take a look at on a case by case basis but basically on a MUSA phasing area, by MUSA phasing area, where we're looking at smaller sections of land, you know we feel pretty comfortable that this plan can address minor changes in those regions. McDonald: Okay. Kate, with that I'll give it back to you for any final words that you'd like to give us. Aanenson: Again, we'd be happy to talk to anybody that's interested in additional information. Again we just tried to hit the high points and I appreciate your comments. Very constructive and I think those are appropriate that our residents would appreciate some additional information so we'll proceed. Our goal when we get to our meeting in January, we have one meeting in January. th The first meeting in January is actually the holiday so the third Tuesday would be January 15. What we were proposing then is take your comments and any of the public comments and share with you how we'll address those and modify the text to accommodate that so. McDonald: Okay. I'll look forward to all that then. With that then I guess the comprehensive plan presentations at least for tonight then, we've concluded with those. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Thomas noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated October 2, 2007 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS: None. Chairman McDonald adjourned the meeting at 8:15 p.m. 20 Planning Commission Meeting - October 16, 2007 Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 21