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PC 1997 03 05CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MARCH $, 1997 Chairman Peterson called the meeting to order at 7;00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Craig Peterson, Bob Skubi¢, Kevin Joyce, Allison Blackowiak, and Allyson Brooks MEMBERS ABSENT: Ladd Conrad STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Planning Director and Bob Oenerous, Senior Planner PUBLIC HEARING: U.S. WEST NE~WECTOR GROUP, INC. FOR A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT APPROVAL TO ALLOW A TELECOMMUNICATION TOWER AT 78 WEST 78TM STREET AND SITE PLAN APPROVAL FOR A 76 FOOT MONOPOLE TOWER, 12' X 24' EQUIPMENT BUILDING AND A SIX FOOT CHAIN LINK FENCE ON PROPERTY ZONED HIGHWAY AND BUSINESS DISTRICT. Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Craig Peterson: Does the applicant wish to address the Planning Commission? Please state your name and address. Marc Kruger: My name is Marc Kruger and I'm with the law firm of Hessian, McKasy and Soderberg, represent'mg U. S. West Cellular, Air Touch Cellular. I believe my partner Jay Littlejohn was before you last t'nne and I believe he has adequately stated our case for tiffs matter. But as a reminder it is our feeling that tiffs is the most appropriate site for our tower in the search area that we have identified and the o~dy one wtfich will work for us with the height that we have proposed and we do believe that, contrary to the staff's recommendation and opinion as to the aesthetic appropriateness for tiffs location that as a matter of fact tiffs location between the two would be better because the property is in closer proximity to the tfigh tension power lines that are located along Hwy. 5 and so for that reason would blend in better with that aesthetic with its location. We also believe that the property can be properly screened as far as the equipment build'mg is concerned so that any concern about the equipment build'mg being less visible at the office build'mg site to the west, we believe could be handled through proper screening and we would be willing as staff has recommended to provide appropriate landscaping for tiffs screening purpose. As for the property to the west, we have been in contact with APT, the applicant for that site. Just today we received the proposed sublease agreement wtfich would permit us, assmning we can reach terms and reach agreement on the document, to co-locate on that site and we are willing to co-locate on that site. As I believe Mr. Littlejohn has also mentioned before, we are willing to permit co-location on our site, our tower, at its current proposed height. By code would not require co-location and as far as APT is concerned, it would not be tall enough to permit co-locate although other users could use a tower of that height. In order to permit the use Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 by APT on our site, of course the tower would have to be tfigher. We are agreeable to co- location provided we could reach agreement with APT as to agahi the terms of sublease from us and also the terms for sharing the additional costs that would be incurred in construct'mg the tower. I believe you have the copies of materials I provided to Mr. Generous wtfich address concerns Council has raised about tiffs particular site selection as opposed to others in the search area and the immediate vicinity, wtfich agahi, I believe indicates that tiffs is the most appropriate available site for us in the area. With that I will miswer any questions from the Coinmissioners. Craig Peterson: We talked about early on when we were doing the originally planning and zoning, ord'mance planning I should say, that we didn't feel as though that the build'mgs would be required. I assume that tiffs is an analogue site versus a digital site. Marc Kruger: That is correct. Craig Peterson: So tiffs is kind of an interim. A build'mg hi reality probably won't be used hi a reasonable period of tune if you move ahead to digital that doesn't require the build'mg? Marc Kruger: Well, there is no commitment on the part of our client to move forward to that new technology. But yes, the bu'fld'mg under the digital, bu'fld'mg per se is not required. There is some equipment required but not a bu'fld'mg certahfly of tiffs size. Craig Peterson: Have you done any studies as far as if you do move to the other location, what degradation of signal quality would be there if any? Marc Kruger: To move next door to 80 West 78m Street. There would not be any particular degradation of the signal. It's not so much, that site happens to fall within our area and it would not be a material change. We would have to construct a... well the height of the tower if we were to be a stand alone tower would have to be tfigher simply because the elevations at that site are lower. So practically speakhig, we need to get to the sanie height that we are now mid I ani not certahi how many additional feet hi height that we would be hi excess of the 80 feet minimum for the co-location requirement. Craig Peterson: Comments from Coinmissioners. Have any thoughts, questions, further statements? Kevin Joyce: Basically, I don't l]fi~rk that with that size of tower you could co-locate with anybody or anyone would like to co-locate with you. That's my opinion. I don't !mow the technology well enough to go past that but I have a feeling that if we were to approve the site, we would have two antennas. We would have one site over there at 80 West 78a~ Street and one site at 78 West 78a~ Street and I don't l]fi~rk that makes any sense. My preference would be one behind the bu'fld'mg. I believe behind that bu'fld'mg at 80 West 78~ Street is behind the bu'fld'mg. A little less dominant feature hi the framework of the neighborhood there and I feel tiffs particular site would play a very dominant feature. Your eye, I flfiirk, would tend to go toward it, with the 2 Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 tfigh tension wires. You would have a bunch of antennas right there kind of congregated together in that area. So I an~ going along with staffs find'mg and suggest denial. Alison Blackowiak: I agree with what Kevin has said. I don't flfi~nk we need two in that neighborhood. I flfi~nk that both companies should work together to decide on a single site and work for co-location. Bob Skubic: I agree with staffs recommendation also. I feel that the equipment bu'fld'mg will be better screened at the site to the west of tiffs and let policy make the decision. Allyson Brooks: I agree with Kevin and Allison. I flfi~nk one tower is better than two towers and the least invisibly intrusive tower would be the better one. Craig Peterson: I really have no further comments from my fellow coxnmissioners either. With that in mind, may I hear a motion? Joyce moved, seconded by Brooks, to recommend denial of Conditional Use Permit #97-1 for personal communication service (PCS) wireless telecommunication facility, including site plan, prepared by Design l, dated 12/12/96, denial for a 76 foot monopole tower and associated equipment, at 78 West 78th Street for U.S. West NewVector Group, Inc. based on the findings for conditional uses contained in the report and the discussion tonight. All voted in favor and the motion carried. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Joyce moved to note the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated February 19, 1997 as presented. CITY COUNCIL UPDATE: Aanenson: At the last City Council meeting, no action was taken on any planning items. The Highlands was scheduled for that meeting and was moved to the March l0th meeting so there really wasn't any planning items on that meeting. ONGOING ITEMS: Aanenson: The Legion site, which you looked at last week, was tabled and we've tentatively programmed that for the March 19th Planning Commission meeting. We have received word, and I should be receiving a formal letter from the Legion, who is the applicant on that, that they have decided not to sell their property so that proposal is now defunct. Now the Legion will continue to stay the way it is. On the next Planning Commission meeting we will be looking at a conceptual plan for the Gateway property. This property was originally proposed back in 1993. Sewer and water to the property was an issue. We're now in a place where they can get sewer and water so we will be reviewing that conceptually. I wanted you to look at that. They're Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 coming in with a mixed PUD they did on a discussion level talked to the Council. When I say mixed PUD, they wanted to add some additional commercial. The PUD didn't allow up to the 25% but I wanted to get your input on that. How you felt about that mixed. A big discussion is there. They wanted to sell that to residential. We said no. We believe that it should remain industrial and that's again looking at the tax base of the city, but they did want to provide some commercial and some residential so. Blackowiak: Kate excuse me. Where exactly, is that on TH 5? The north side of TH 5? Aanenson: TH 5 and TH 41. South. Blackowiak: The southeast comer? Aanenson: Correct. Blackowiak: Okay, thank you. Aanenson: So again it will be conceptual then it will go up to the Council and again try to get some read on what you think how that mix should work out. So again the conceptual is very rough. We're just trying to formalize some issues to take it to the next level. Other things that are going on. There's a car dealership we've been talking with for well over a year. That's still trying to go forward. They are looking at the Mortenson property which is next to the Legion site so you'll probably be looking at that in May. They've been working on that. And then Chan Business Center where you'll be seeing in the next, one month from today. Probably a couple of their industrial uses on that site. Just to let you know so kind of what we're seeing mostly now is commercial industrial. Peterson: That Mortenson site is zoned for the dealership per se. Aanenson: You'd have to rezone it. It's zoned commercial, neighborhood commercial. An auto dealership would take a rezoning of the property to require the legislative action which they may or may not choose to do. That's all I had. COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE. Aanenson: Okay. Bob and I were just kind of, this is really just a discussion item. What we want to do is, as we're writing the document, we want to kind of give you some background before we come forward with the narrative. As you recall when we were discussing it, we wanted to have a series of neighborhood meetings which I also have discussed with the Council. And Chaska's kind of using the same format. They're going to have a series of neighborhood meetings at the Planning Commission and the Council and get a read on what the issues are that are out there. Whether they're transportation, housing, amount of commercial, tax base so we'll try to set 4 Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 that up. I've indicated to the Council I'd like to get an idea what's a good time frame for them and then we would joint host the Planning Commission and Council and it'd kind of be an open house format where we would have a lot of maps around. Let people mill around and look and then kind of just ask them what their feelings are of things that are happening. What's of big concern for them and that would give us some good guidance. But meanwhile what we want to do is try to give you some, based on some trends and things that we know, give you some background so you can see kind of the direction we're going and what the implications are for some of the things that we know. What we've included in your packet was a great report that we just received from Carver County HRA and this document was a follow-up on their commitment to the Livable Communities Act. They said they would go through this study. When they met with us, the consultant, they asked us what issues we have and we wanted to know, one of the things that we did ask them to look at, through our Block Grant program we've tried to do some renovation where maybe there's some houses that have been degregated. So we asked them to look to see if we had any blighted areas in town and then they just included us in the general study area. So we'll go through those. But first I'd like to just talk about we've, since we've completed the Bluff Creek study we have ultimately decided the future land uses. We wanted to look at those population projections and kind of reaffirm where we were thought we would be as ultimate build out. What is the rate of growth based on the building permit activity? All these have implications as far as when a big decision will have to be made with the Council. How fast we should expand the MUSA and what should our rate of growth be. So we want to kind of share with you some of these trends and again, what the implications would be so I don't know if you want... Generous: Well the first thing we did, I just took the housing unit types and from historical data we projected it out to 2020, which is about what we're proposing the next comp plan amendment. And based on this, we'll average approximately 300 dwelling units a year, which is our basis over the last 17 years. We believe that will continue. However, what the trends are showing us, that we will not be able to continue with the detached single family style development. For one thing we don't have enough land designated for that. We can reach the totals that are shown on the housing units for that type. And also we're changing the demographics that are taking place in the community and throughout Minnesota and the United States. As the population ages, we're looking at people that want different styles of housing units. They want the single level living. They don't want the maintenance responsibilities and so we'll be seeing more of that and as part of the Bluff Creek study we actually, a lot of the design elements looked towards that and said we're like to see more clustering take place in development and so we believe that has changed. So one thing we don't have enough land to accommodate all the single family as shown in continuing average building permit activity. And also we don't, using the numbers, we will have to increase the density that we see in development from what has happened previously. Especially on the multi-family side. Unfortunately some of our multi-family land is owned by entities that probably won't develop it for multi-family development. Eckankar is one example. They like to hold onto their property so we have a lot of high density land that is in essence taken Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 out of the equation. And so where we can, need to push the developer's up to the upper end of the density ranges that we have in our comp plan. Aanenson: As you recall, we discussed that in the Bluff Creek where we looked at some of those areas. Either along 212, the new 212 where there were those pockets that we thought we could try to get, especially where they're transit friendly, that we would try to provide those opportunities in that corridor. But what we're saying is that we need to be looking at those projects down the line as they come in. Blackowiak: I have a quick question. You're talking about not having enough land for single family. Do you define that as in terms of the Livable Communities Act? Generous: If you follow the historical trend, we just.., continue that average number of single family detached dwelling units, we'll mn out of land. Blackowiak: So is that a bad thing or? Generous: Well we don't think so and one of the later graphics... What we want to get is diversification in our housing types so that we can have the whole gammet of people living in our community. Young families and retired people. Blackowiak: Yeah, I was just curious because some of the stuff I've been reading that I had gotten talked about Chanhassen making itself to be a single family community. This is like documents from the 80's I think or something. Even earlier. And I'm wondering if, have we totally changed our focus? I mean you're talking 300 permits per year and running out of single family so, help me out. Aanenson: No. What we're talking about. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Generous: You'll see changes in the types of units coming in. For instance we had that mixed density development, the Highlands where it had some single family detached but then there are the cottage units which are the detached townhouses and then the townhouse development. Plus we'll see other townhouse projects that will start coming on line like Autumn Ridge which is 140 units. Villages on the Ponds which is 322 units. And the Highway 5 corridor, there are other medium and high density lands that will develop. Aanenson: I think what we want to say is that's a trend. I mean we will always be, and we'll show you that on this chart here. We will always be predominantly single family detached. That's our greatest percentage. We will always have that. What we're saying is that threshold, what you're seeing is what Bob is saying is you're going to see less of the predominance of single family. Just like 2 years ago, or actually '95 we actually saw more different types of housing permits than the traditional single family because that market was getting saturated. 6 Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 Generous: And this is where I was saying, it showed that we'll still be predominantly single family, which is the large lot and the low density as part of the... 64% of our housing. The single family. Aanenson: That's 64%. I mean that's predominant. Blackowiak: No, I was just curious why you were saying that we were going to run out. Generous: Just out of land. Aanenson: Out of land availability. Blackowiak: For single family? Aanenson: Yes. Blackowiak: Okay. Assuming no zoning changes? Aanenson: Right. Generous: They... comp plan amendment. Blackowiak: Okay, thank you. Peterson: Just as an aside. Are any communities in the metro area that are actively building apartments right now? Aanenson: Pardon me? Peterson: That are actively building apartment complexes. Generous: Apartments. We have condominium ownership because of the tax structure, property taxes. Aanenson: I'm sure there's a few going up but it's not a preponderance. Generous: And one thing we're seeing, persons per household. Chanhassen is bucking the trend, if you will. Our population per household has actually gone up compared to other communities. Historically Chanhassen in 1970 had 3.6 persons per household. In the metro area it was 3.26. In 1980 our persons per household were 3.04. In 1990 it was 2.92 but then in '95, as part of the study area, it went back up to 2.93 and that's because of our preponderance of single family 7 Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 detached housing. We see a lot of young families moving into the community. In '95 the metro area, persons per household was 2.59. As you can see, we're going, they're going down and we're still staying up. Aanenson: But part of the assumptions that we're making is that over time, as the population ages, even in Chanhassen, that those are going to kind of come closer together. We know our senior housing apartment has been successful and they're looking forward to maybe in a few years out trying to do another one of those. So over time, and this is part of what Mike Munson talked to us about from the Met Council, is that there was a huge, they missed the mark in the 80's. Households increased significantly faster than they anticipated based on single head of household. Just people waiting longer to get married. Combining households. A lot of those factors actually increased so you had a lot of difl'erent living types that they hadn't anticipated. Again, people delaying marriages and those sorts of things so actually there was a lot of more housing diversity. People not demanding typical housing types so we believe that over time that, you know this is projecting out to the year 2020, that we're going to slowly drop down to that. Kind of more of the metro average. Generous: And we're looking at a buildout population of approximately 35,000 people. We estimate right now that it will be sometime between 2020 and 2025. However some of that is influenced if when Eden Prairie is built up and we're the next step down the road. Aanenson: What I'd like to share with you then is, what we did is we put, based on the...break down the percentages of the different land use. Commercial, residential. Again, low density... adding a large lot residential. That brings us up to the 58%... What's happened is that we have, I think waste here because the large lots are anywhere from 2 to 5 acres, and we believe that those are going to stay that way. Based on the location that they are, demand for urban services based on topography and their location, more than likely they will never be asked to be, have urban services and subdivide in the future. So our large lot in the low density again is still going to be our predominant land use. What we did is kind of compared what we had in the 1991 and that's within your packet too. And what we looked at for the 2020 to give you an idea, there were some changes. Part of the curve between the old land. These recommendations, or the old comp plan and what we're looking at in the year 2020... low density residential spelled that out. We tried to increase the amount of commercial. Office industrial. Parks and open space obviously went up and those are some of the areas we identified along with Bluff Creek and trying to look at, high density really didn't increase much. Medium density did. What we did then is to, why those numbers went up is there was a lot of area unguided and a lot that was kind of designated undevelopable. Those areas got actually placed in one of those other components. So some of that got placed into low density. That was unguided. Some of that got placed into the medium. Some of it got transferred into industrial. So what we did, that was kind of the undesignated areas and you can see kind of where they fell into place. 8 Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 Peterson: Is it safe to assume that you didn't put into those percentages any rezoning? This is just new land to be zoned. Aanenson: Correct. Right. I mean we didn't make any assumptions if someone was to come in and ask for something higher. This is just the minimum, right. If we could I'd just kind of like to walk through the Carver County plan that they put together. The HRA... Peterson: Before you go onto that, any questions on this from anybody? Blackowiak: I have just a quick question. What's numbered as page 6 in here that looks like it's about page. Aanenson: That's from the comprehensive plan. Blackowiak: Okay, yep. When were these numbers, the basis numbers taken? I mean you've got the 212. Then we've got the. Aanenson: Those were compiled with the 19, I would guess 1990 census because this was approved in 1991 so I would believe those are 1990 numbers. Blackowiak: So then they were all like the same year but they just came up with fairly different. Aanenson: There's difl'erent methodology. Blackowiak: The 212, yeah. Aanenson: We just find out when we go through this, there was a group hired by Carver County that again their numbers are higher than the Met Council numbers so we've always stated that they're just a little bit low. Blackowiak: The Met Council you mean? Aanenson: Yeah. Blackowiak: But these were all like 1990 numbers so, okay. Generous: Between '88 and '90. Aanenson: And then you'd look at what Bob had put together for the City's population, we used those to show the different high-low, but again we've kind of always felt we'd be in the 30,000- 35,000 for ultimate build-up. Again it just depends on development patterns. People that want to increase, decrease over time and what people's desires are.., development. If we can just start at 9 Planning Commission Minutes March 5, 1997 the beginning of the executive summary. There's some interesting things right in the beginning. Again things that we already know. Again, this was geared for Carver County but this packet is specifically Chanhassen but there's county wide things that we'll be talking about and then things we need for Chanhassen. Although Carver County is... for population, we're experiencing the greatest amount of growth, which we certainly know. Again this is their response to the Livable Communities Act. If you want to turn to page 31. The demographic information that they used includes the Metropolitan Council but they also used the growth, it's called.., and so you can see some different numbers and again it kind of helps give a perspective. When you've got two people doing the projections. They had seen that in Carver, Chanhassen, Chaska, Victoria, all had rates of growth greater than 20% between 1990 and 1995. In turning the page you can see the populations on where the demographic data 2-2. I was just going to put this on the page... You can see the trends and population. Chanhassen being the second city down. Again this is Metropolitan Council. We're estimating our population right now to date, 17,500. And then also on 3-3, again 1995, you can see where Claris is estimating higher than the Met Council and that's kind of what we've already said too. Met Council's always... (Taping of the meeting ended at this point in the discussion.) Submitted by Kate Aanenson Planning Director Prepared by Nann Ophehn 10