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1991 03 20 PLANNIN~ COHHISSION ~EETING 20, 1991 Chair n Emmings called the meeting to order at 7:35 p.m.. : Tim Erhart, Ladd Conrad, Annette Ellson, Steve Emmtngs, Bria Batzli, Jeff Farmakes, and Joan Ahrens s' PRESENT= Paul Krauss, Planning Director; and Sharmtn Al-Jarl, Plan I HEARING: LOCAl Sh~ cai n Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. Chairman Emmings the public hearing to order. moved, Erhart ~econded to close the public hearing. ~11 voted in and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. Emmi ~s: Does anybody have anything to talk about on this? If not, is a motion? Batzl : I'll move that the Planning Commission recommend'approval of Condi ional Use Permit Request #91-2 for one 70 square foot pylon sign with the nditions set forth in the staff report. : Second. Emmi s: It says that one of the conditions is that the applicant must submi an application for a sign permit. ' Now'isn't that what this is? That ust sounds peculiar to me. I thought they had to give you an appli ation before that issue comes up. : Commissioner, no. Actually what they've applied for non is the condi ional use permit between you and the City Council. They actually need he permit to construct the sign. Emmi s: Okay. Do they ordinarily do that at one time? : No. Emm i s: 0 kay. : They actually do that if they have apprdval and when they're ready to pu the thing up. Emmi s: Okay. . moved, Conrad seconded that the Planning Coemiuion recommend ,al of Conditional Use Permit Request #91-2 for one 70 square foot sign with the following conditions: Plann March 2. TI 3. TI 1 4. T ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 2 ,e sign may not exceed 20 feet in height. ,e area of the sign may not exceed '72 square feet. ,e sign shall maintain e minimum setback of 10 feet from all property ,e applicant must'submit an application for a sign permit. ,ted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. I -= ~PE IT F R T Y AND II. Publi~ Present: Clem pringer, Weis Asset Mgmt, 3601 Minnesota Drive #i10, Mpls, MN 55435 Paul :rauss presented the staff report on this item. Emmin is: Is the size changing? Kraus : No. Clem pringer: Approximately the same size... Emmin ~s: Why don't you come on up to the podium. Paul, does that conclude the s .afl report? Okay. Clem inger: Exhibit A, you can see that it Nas originally down in the end o the center and non it's in space i09 and lll. Also Ne have the plans requested by the City of the design of the restaurant here. Emmin~s: Okay, and what is the difference in size? How big are those tNo space, together? Clem Emmi n this pringer: 2,600. ~s: Alright. .imm? Is there anything else you'd like to present to us at Clem .pringer: No. We accept the conditions from staff. Thank you. Emmin .s: Alright, thank you. This is a public hearing. Are there any membe s of the public, anyone here that wants to comment on this? Conra moved, Erhart seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing ~as cloaed. Plann ng Commission Meeting MaTch 20, 1991 - Page 3 Emmims: Tim, have you got anything on this one? Erhart : Just what's the status of the landscaping? Erhar Permi date read, compl site. Batzl Kraus plan a cha here? : I'll move that the Planning Commission approve Conditional Use #91-1 for Happy Gardens. Is there a date on that Paul? With some ith the conditions as stated in the staff report with number 2 to ior to issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy, the applicants shall with all conditions previously attached to other approvals on this : Second. : Paul is there anything, since you were just presented with a new or the restaurant, is there anything that should be added to give you ce to review that or are you comfortable with the conditions that ate Kraus: : The landscaping was completed last fall. Erhart : And the applicant is aware that we're basically saying one wall sign s opposed to two? Clem .pringer: That is moved in the interior...one sign. Erhar : That's my only question. Conrai : Nothing. Emminls: Annette? Brian? Batzi : In condition 2. ATe we trying to say that the applicant shall compl with? Who ate we trying to get to comply? I was Just confused on the w rding of that. Kraus : The owners of the shopping center. They're co-applicants with the CUP. Batzl : Okay. I guess I'd prefer that it read, cross out the words there shall be compliance with and say applicants shall comply with or shall have compl ed with. That's it. Emmin is: 3elf? Farma les: I have no comments. Emmin is: 3can? Ahren : No comments. Emminl s: Alright. Does anybody have anything else they want to talk about on th, s one? If not, is there a motion? Plann March Krausl the r4 look we di. Emm i ni Erhart approl wtth t 2. ti 3. TI All v~ PUBL] AMEND H~OlC Publtl Nam! Bob C~ Brad; Sharm: calle, Bob C~ build: about other lot s. her e, I don the s, was a cones here. sign. sign. wider like your ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 4 : Mr. Chairman, I'm comfortable with the conditions. The plans for .staurant are pretty straight forward. The only thing that we would or is that there not be a major addition of a bar or something that n't anticipate and that's not the case here. .s: Alright. We've got a motion and second. , moved, Batzli seconded that the PIannXng Coaunission recommend ,al of CondlttonaX Use Permit #91-1 for Happy Gardens II Restaurant ,he folXowlng conditions: 1 trash shall be stored internally. ior to issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy, the a;~=licants shall ,mply with all conditions previously attached to other approvals on ~is site. ,e restaurant is only permitted one wall sign. ,ted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. HEARIN~: lENT TO SITE PLAN APPROVAL ~ENDIN~ THE $I~N~T~E FOR THE CH~NHASSEN L ARTS FACILITY I~OCATED AT 470 NEST 71~TH STREET. Present: neland ohnson 7625 Metro Blvd., Suite 165, Edina Lotus Realty n Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. Chairman Emmings the public hearing to order. peland: My name is Bob Copeland. I'm one of the owners of the ng. If I may, I'd like to review briefly with you what this is all This is the Chanhassen Medical Center. It's been called various things. Ridgeview Medical Center most recently. This is the parking .de and this is the street side. The two signs that are in question this is a directory sign. This is the proposed location of that and t think the location is at question. I think the issue there is that gn that we'd like to put in place now is 6 inches higher than what ,patently previously approved. So that's the issue as far as I'm nod. So it's 6 inches higher. $o that's one of the reasons we're The other one is that this sign, this is the location of the pylon It's the 78th Street side and there are two things related to that According to staff, this sign is that we're proposing is 4 feet than approved by Council. And also according to staff, they don't .he idea that we would say two things on the sign. As you can see in ,acket there that we would say on one part of the sign we say Plann March Ridgei tenani these agree have , we dol just t staff reasol your I comme~ massii appro~ wasa ' about wldth what thlng this than pylon also l ident. and ti Food build Suite has a happel we fe~ a 11 When that any d pylon total. on th~ of wh~ we're On th, Even reaso build at al from any q Emm i n~ here? Bob C, one a~ .ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 5 ,iew Center and on the right hand side we would say the name of the ,s, American Family Insurance. Now first of all let's maybe just take things one at a time if we may. I think that the directory signs, we with the staff that we are changing what we like and we'd like to t 6 inches higher now and we don't think that's a material change and 't think that's really worthy of much conversation and hope that you o along with the sign. We think the proportions are better and we'd ike a 6 inch higher sign. On this pylon sign, we disagree with the We maintain that this sign was approved at 14 feet wide and the we say that, to document that if you turn to the very last page of acket. 39. Page 39. About 3/4 of the way down you see some its made by me on June 4th there and it says, I said that it's not a ,e Amoco type sign. We were talking about this very sign. It's :imately a foot and a half high. I didn'.t have the drawings so I sure about that dimension but it's 14 feet side. Then there were 2 or 3 other comments and that was approved. So we don't think the of the sign is an issue. We think that it's 14 feet side and that's las approved. Now as far as whether the sign can say one thing or two on there, I would suggest to you that there are many, many signs in ommunity and most other communities where these pylon signs say more ,ne thing. I call your attention to the Fire Department sign. That sign out there that has the name of the Fire Department and then it ~as a message on the same sign. The sign for Town Square. It .lies Town Square. It has a message related to some sales and things lea it also mentions the name of one of the tenants. The Brooke's larket is mentioned again on the pylon sign as well as on the .ng. I think there are other instances of that too. The Country sign, pylon sign. It tells you that it's Country Suites but it also other sign where they can change the wording and I think today it s to say welcome. 8ut it says two things, on the same pylon sign. $o ,1 that our sign is in keeping, with the other things that have been ,d here. We don't see anything in any ordinance that prohibits this. .he Council last time talked about not more than one tenant on a sign, las regarding the wall signs. Not this pylon sign and there wasn't .scussion of whether there could be one or two things put on this sign. So we think that we are, our changes are minor. They are .y within the ordinances and we suggest that you should vote favorably ,m. Just for your information, on our wall signs we are at about 30~ ~t we're allowed in terms of area. On our business directory sign, at 22~ of the size allowed, even with our 6 inch increase in height. business pylon sign, we're at 45~ of the allowed square footage. ith the so called increase. If you buy the increase line of lng. Over all, we are at 30~ of our allowed signage related to this .ng. We don't see anything wrong with what we're proposing to do here . and we see it as very minor differences, if any in some instances Ihat was approved before. So that's all we have to say. If you have estions, I'd be happy to answer them. s: Alright, thank you. If people have questions, you're going to be ,peland: I'll stick around. Oh wait. I'm sorry. Let me point out ditional thing if I may. Just so you have the proper perspective. Plann March This sign build Emm in.. band Bob C Emmin:1 Bob C, pe probaily ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 6 tawing shows the street elevation of the building and the proposed o that's the side. And this side shows the parking lot side of the ng and the directory sign. That is 6 inches increased in height. s: As far as American Family is concerned, will they also have a n the building? · peland: No. They will not. That would be their only sign? Okay. land: They want identification on the street which understand. think you can Erhart Bob C~ Erharl Bob C, put i and t' the p' The c< talki Erhar' Bob C~ Conra~ Bob C~ there' mount~ Erhar Bob C : Would you explain that? I don't understand that. ~eland: On the 7Sth Street side? : Why not, as opposed to a band? 3eland: Because the bands are taken. There's no band to be able to on. I took a picture today and I also cut out that little square ied to show you the approximate size of the proposed sign. This is 'Ion sign. So you might just pass this around and see down there. lot would match the sign bands but that's the size of the pylon we're ,g about. : You mean gold? 3eland: Pardon me? No, it's going to match the deep burgandy color. : It's not a wall mounted? ~eland: That's correct. We have ali the wail mounted signs that s room for and that we've asked for and we're not discussing wall ,d signs at this time. : Is the sign going to face directly into the street? ~eland: Correct. Erhart~{ How far away from the building? Bob C eland: I don't know that precisely but it's within 5 to 10 feet of the b~ ' lding. Erhar build Bob C~ Erhar : Okay And what's the distance between the sidewalk and the ng in t~at spot? ~eland: Approximately 20 feet. = Okay, and that's going to be grass? Plann March Bob C, exact, Erbar Bob C, where then ConTa Bob C~ Conra~ Bob C, It's white Conra~ flow? Bob C~ Conra~ Bob C~ Erhar' Bob C~ Erhar' there Bob C~ want Erhar Emmin~ for h, Bob C, want with Erhar spent band month was 7' .ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 7 ,peland: Don't hold me to that exact dimension. I don't know y. : And that's grass in there? peland: It's grass. From the building out there's a landscaped area there are chips and some sort of shrubbery and that kind of thing and :od from the sidewalk. : Is it illuminated? peland: This sign would be illuminated, yes. The directory sign. : Backlit or illuminated? peland: It would have a light inside so I guess backlit is the term. box. It's an aluminum box. Burgandy color and the lettering is : How come you have it facing straight out versus facing the traffic peland: I don't think it will fit on the property. : The 14 feet wouldn't fit, no. ~eland: No. : If you had a preference of having one more band. peland: I don't think there's an adequate place for one. : Well the center band is in the center of the building and then s two blank spots on either side of it. Ipeland: Well you wouldn't want to add just one more. Then you'd .o add two more. : Well, we could move one over. In other words, get $ bands. s: But you did say that American Family has expressed a preference Lying it? ~peland: No, they haven't necessarily expressed an interest. They cod signage from the 78th Street side. We haven't discussed that hem so I'm not really sure. · : I mean, we had one meeting where you spent a bunch of money and we a bunch of time and went from, I guess we clarified that we needed 5 igns. Maybe what you really need is.~. What tells you today that 6 from now another tenant will come along and say what I really needed Plann March Bob C you ' d Brad what we ha tenan to thl ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 8 · peland: Nell I don't know. If we're back here again next time, have to reconsider it then ohnson= I'm Brad 3ohnson. I live in Chanhassen. I think basically me're, from a conceptual point of view as far as signage is concerned, 'e probably 3 types of tenants on main street. You've got the retail such as Brooke's Superette or you know people that provide products customer and we're sort of used to seeing them have signs. You have what ms called retail service which this building and the additional building that will be built there are designed for. Primarily. Retail servi :e means I have a service such as insurance in this case or I'm a docto or I'm a lawyer or whatever and I'd like the public to come to my offic and know that I'm there and I like to publicize that. So we have a retai service sector. If you look at your SIC codes in your book someday, SiC, ou'll find that about 50~ of all businesses that are retail oriented are c ,nsidered to be retail and the balance are service oriented. You know servile type of clients that are looking for. Those types of people are the t~ oe of people that would want to be in the downtown generally. You then I ~ve the type of tenant that does not need to be known that he's there or sh~ is there or the business is there. That would be like another one of oul tenants in that building called Thies and Tails. They have nothing to se I to the public. They don't care if the public knows they're there or no. and so they're not interested in signage. They could be in the industlrial park and that's the primarily place where you'd normally find them. They happen to be an owner of the building so they happen to be in this ,uilding but that would be a typical tenant that you'd find in the class c office building who didn't care whether anybody knew they were there or not. $o you have three types of tenants. Your downtown location is att,racting primarily service oriented retail. Insurance, doctors, lawyeis and real estate type of companies and retail retail who do need signal,s. Now when we designed this building, we put in a sign band along the t,lT that I guess filled with, we had two tenants or whatever. We proball y hit about 50~ or 60~ of the maximum in your sign ordinances which I checked today to see if they'd been modified since 1986 when they were ,,dopted. It simply says in the CBD district you're allowed 15~ of the building wall signage. You're allowed a tenant identification sign of up to 80 squat out o much quest and i lette $2,00 to th~ logo. diffi could their nice. in mel anothi the a~ square feet and you're allowed a pylon sign of approximately 64 feet, none of which should be higher than 20 feet. That's quoting your ordinances. We've designed all of these to be muqh lower and mallet because they wouldn't fit. I think in answer to your on, we've now gone through the whole process of signing that building kind of balances. Okay? And it's true we could move one of those s back and forth but Just to move the letters is $1,500.00 or .00. Those letters are very difficult to install and so in addition t, in this particular case the tenant, American Family has sort of a It's that little house that goes over it's name which would be :ult to add to, from their point of view, to the sign band. They have the name American Family but the logo's important. And so for ooint of view they would like to be where they are. It works out As you say, we haven't really talked to them about the other one but ~tioning it but, so you have 3 types of signage. In another to ,r question, will we ever be back? I guess as long as we are below ount of signage allowed and there's a public hearing process, because Plann March back taste drive they got t 5that~ Emminl Erhar~ alter' build. Squar, signs sign, the s, Kraus to on We ' ve build: talki signs won't love diffe and t that' condi sign Erhar Kraus more archi getti the s You kl trivi i nc he it bei just got a liked prima Mar ke approI right name ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 9 not just applying for a permit, I guess we have the right to come nd request that the signage be changed if it's in properly good And that's a right that we have. So as I said, the people that this are the people that pay the rent and the other alternative is ust have vacant buildings and that's not our goal. That's what I've say on that particular concept. Thank you. : Can I continue on with the point I was trying to make there? s: Go ahead. .: I wasn't trying to be critical at all. I'm trying to establish an ~ative thought that I had and that was, you've got a commercial .ng, multi-tenant. We've got one across the street over here in Town · You have a sign band. I assume, I mean do we limit the number of on Town Square building or do we limit it in terms of how long the the minimum length of one sign is or do we have any limits at all on .gn band on that building? : Town Square has a sign covenant package. Each tenant is entitled and there is some size restriction but there's a difference that tried to maintain all along and that's that Town Square is a retail .ng. It's people selling pizzas'and gasoline and restaurants. We're ~g about an office building here. We're talking about a heavily office building. There isn't an tenant in the world, not many that take a sign or won't ask for a sign and if they could get one they'd t. But you know when you go past the IDS building you don't see 45 ent signs for whichever law firms are inside. They have a lobby sign )at's just the fact of life that they deal with. Another factor not coming out here is that when this project was approved, as a ion of approval they were required to get sign plan approval. That ,lan deviates from the Code· : From the what? : From the Zoning Ordinance and Sign Ordinance. In some areas it's estrictive and in some areas it's less but it was part of the .ectural package that was approved with this building. Now what we're ~g is playing two sides of the coin· Yes we have our sign package but gn ordinance also allows us more theoretically so let's get that too. ~ow, when we argue about a sign being 6 inches taller, that is .1. It really is. I don't know where to draw the line. If it's 6 or a foot and a half or 3 feet. I mean someplace in there I suppose crees more significant. We're not trying to be contrary with this· It :eemed to us that here we had a plan that was approved. Here we've request for additional signage. There's no guidance as I would have to have seen I suppose in a sign covenant that restricted signage to y tenants. That's something that we asked Market Square to do. . Square has signs of different size in the sign package that was 'ed and it's by the size of the tenant. Only the major tenants has a to be on the pylon sign which basically will have the Shopping Center .nd the supermarket. We're comparing a lot of apples and oranges wit Plann March this~ line l Emmint build. the r~ Kraus~ Emm i ni .ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 10 ,ne and it makes us uncomfortable. We don't know where'to draw the ,asically. Is: Let me ask you something here Paul. The sign in the front of the ,rig that they're proposing, what was it? That was approved along with ,st of the signage? The bands on the building and so forth? : NO. s: Or is that something new? Kraus know1 Emm i n presel Al-Ja' Bob C, that'i sign~ Krausl Bob C( Emm i nl bands a sigl Bob C~ now o' Kraus~ origil It's the should be approved. There was no request. No new information. No :sion apart from Mr. Copeland's comments in the Minutes that I can on the staff report relative to those signs except for the fact that have been noted that they were there. : We didn't discuss that at all. s: No. I don't remember it at all either. $o there wasn't, were any drawings or anything showing this, how should I refer to that n the front there? Monument? : Identification sign. : Yeah. Is there any new information on that? To the best of my dge, no. is: Are you aware, is there anything on those drawings that were ited back at that time or weren't there any? 'f: No, there weren't any. :eland: That's not, pardon me. If I'm understanding your question, not an accurate answer. I think if your question was, was a pylon vet approved in any form. Is that your question? : No. ~eland: Then I don't understand. s: I'm wondering if we have, I know that we talked about'the sign and a directory sign in the back. I don't remember ever considering in the front of the building on the ground. :eland: Well there was, one was approved and it's just a question what size it is and what it says. : That's true. One was approved. Back up a year further to the ~al sign plan that was approved. There was a sign in this location. :mallet than the one being requested now and it only had the name of .ilding on it. Erhar Emmint there sign Ahren bands discu fecal it ma Kraus~: Well I guess the way I interpretted what happened last summer was that $he attention was focused on the sign bands themselves. How many sign Plann March Emmi n at thi Krau$1 A1-Ja~ Brad the n Emmi nl need~ heari' every~ quest, Bob C~ Emmint Brad, being There delini we bu. We've good fetal custo in a the r knew see 0 a higl in th~ not ti packal that, staff lettel chara~ signs reali are h Ahrenl wet e Brad that ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 11 IS: That's what I was going to ask. If it was proposed, did they say .t time what was going to be on it? : Yes. f: This is what was approved. 'ohnson: That's a building identification sign but that's not even Lme of the building. Is: Well, the name of the building has changed but so then you don't Lny sign at all maybe huh? Okay. Alright, we've still got a public ~g open here and let's see if there's anybody. Have you said .hing to us that you'd like to say at this point? We may have more .ons for you later and we'll give you another chance to talk. ,peland: Thank you. IS: Is there anybody else here who wants to talk? 'ohnson: I'd like to say something because...and I object to this called an office building classification and the signage different. s nothing in your ordinances to say signage office, it doesn't ,ate the difference. It just allowed signage in the CBD district and .It, we've got the Bloomberg building which is an office building. got signs all over that. We've got, not that I think they look very ,ut there is no delineation. As an office building, this is a service building. I was trying to point out that we do have retail type ~ers like an insurance agents, doctors, chiropractors, which will go 'etail building just the same, all of which need signage. And one of ,asons that Waconia Hospital located at that location is that they .hey could have signage. One of the reasons all of those tenants you the front located at that location is because they were looking for traffic area with signage. We recently leased some additional space s community to St. Francis Hospital. If you go down on West 79th, ~at I agree with how the signs look but they have the standard sign le for an office building in that retail look. If you want to look at they've got a pylon sign and a number of different signs which the just approved and I wouldn't say it looks good. You can't see the s on it but that's office building signs. That's all the same :teristics of this particular building. Not in the CBD district. The over there don't restrict it. I think that that's what you have to ie is that the precedence has been set. We have some ordinances that ,re and they approve them as they go along. : When American Family moved into the building, did they think they oing to get a sign on the front? 'ohnson: They will not move in the building unless they get a sign. ~ying my business is leasing space and I'm in town here to make sure .he people who lease space from us make money. Ahren : What's the occupancy rate of the building right now? Plann March Brad Ahren Brad Ahren Brad time other couId Ahren other Brad is a Ahren Brad Ahren Brad agr ee~ per. Emmini Brad l we ha, throu lease it's the d~ next and t not al under Bob C virtu~ pylon Hall~ the 1, Ahrenl ,rig Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 12 'ohnson: 90~. : It' s 90~ occupied? ohnson: Yes. : And there's right now you're only advertising 5? ohnson: I have two more tenants in there and we're having a hard ,ecause, we went to American Family and they said look. They had 3 :laces to go potentially and we had to present to them that they have a sign. : So you're doing this all for American Family because all those tenants don't care if they're advertising? 'ohnson: I'm doing it for the next tenant in line. The next tenant octor who will ask me the same thing. : Where will you put his sign? ohnson: He may not get one. : Will he move into the building if he doesn't get a sign? ohnson: I don't know. But right now we know that originally we had at the last meeting, as you recall, to go to 5 signs and one sign Okay? Is: Yep. 'ohnson: And reduce the total number of potential tenants. At time all the spaces leased. Since that time we've had two tenants fall h and that's why we said, we felt comfortable. All the space was and right now we've got two spaces in there to lease but I think matter of principle. We're dealing in retail locations located in wntown area. We're dealing with the standard. We come back with the ,uilding you'd better believe is going to have a lot of signs on it ~ey'll meet code. I don't understand when things meet code and we're king for variances why we have this kind of problem. I don't tand that problem. ,peland: The building we're in right now has 3 wall signs saying :lly the same thing on three sides of the building and it has the sign or whatever you'd call it out here, announcing that it's City ~gain. So I mean it's very common and we're not stretching things to .mit at all with this 30~ of what's allowed. : Can I ask a question? Emmint s: Sure. Plann March Ahren Staff a pac sign signs somewl to ha, build. distr with Kraus our t being was h~ Plann appa¥ about authol fact~ to dr for Mi like the s doing an en~ gives Bob C~ That' them Kraus Bob C Kraus confo Bob C~ Emm i nl Brad writt cannot Bob C< Emmin~ point' .ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 13 : In the staff report it says, on page 3, the second paragraph. originally reviewed the signage plan for the Medical Arts Building as ;age and did not hold the project to a strict interpretation of the ~rdinance. The ordinance does not allow low profile identification in the CBD. Back up to the first sentence. I realize there's lat of an exaplanation here because you thought that it would be okay ,e these kinds of signs on this building because of the nature of the ng. The way we envisioned signage to be in the central business ct. Is that right? Is that why you didn't make them comply strictly he sign ordinance? : I think there's a couple of reasons for'that. It predated both of nures here but in going back through this we had a premiere building built in downtown. It was built with participation of the City. It ld to something of a different standard. They were required by the ng Commission to come back in for a signage plan approval because .ntly the Planning Commission and City Council felt strongly enough it that it was an element that you wanted to have some additional 'ity to control. We're willing to abide by that commitment and in .hat commitment as redefined last year and again, I don't know where :w the line on these things. When we have a sign plan that's approved ~rket Square for example. That package of sign covenants, it's almost PUD for signs. That becomes the ordinance for tha~ site. That was gn plan approval. They do have the right to come back as they're to request modifications to that but again, then to say that there's .itlement because the ordinance which is a notoriously bad ordinance, them something more, I have a tough time digesting that. :eland: In what way didn't the original package meet the ordinance? what you say there. You say we're not allowed a low sign? You have 11 over the city. : Not in the CBD. :eland: You don't? : They're actually illegal in the CBD. Now we may have some non- ming ones or grandfathered ones. :eland: Where does it say you're not allowed them? s: I'm going to call an end to this argument. 'ohnson: Well the point being is that in the City ordinance, and it's in there, it does not allow a low profile. Ail it says is that it exceed 20 feet in height. :eland: I would think a lower sign would be better. s: Have you presented to us what you want to present to us at this Brad ohnson: Yep. Plann ng Commission Meeting March 20, 1991 - Page 14 Emmin~s: issue' Alright, is there anyone else here who wants to talk on this Erhart moved, Batzlt seconded to close the public hearing. ~11 voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. Emmint~s: Alright, Joan. Ahrenl : It seems we've been discussing these signs ad nauseam or we did last ~ lng. We never discussed and if there was a discussion it took place ~fore I came here but I don't remember any discussion of any addit onal signs besides the 5 bands. If you say they were approved, of cours ~ I believe you. I didn't like the 5 bands. I had a real problem with .hose to begin with. I thought they looked bad and I think they do look ,ad. I think there's no conformity at all in the lettering or in the size ,r the style and to add another sign on there advertising one more tenan in a way that's completely, I'm looking at this picture. In a way that', completely different from the rest of them, I think will detract from he building. On the other hand I have a real problem with how this whole thing was approved to begin with. It seems to me that they were told a var sty of things as to what would fly sign wise and I'd hate to think that e're just making up the rules as we go along but it kind of looks like .hat to me. I hate the idea of they said the applicants would come in repea .edly if necessary to keep asking for signs. I think that's a terril,le idea. I think it will make the building look terrible. I was told ' n the beginning, I think we were all told this was going to be a profel:sional building. Now it's going to be a retail building. I don't know ~hat our expectations are of what the appearance of this building is going to be. This additional picture that was presented of, where is this? St. F1 ancis Physician? Oh, okay. I don't think that this is really relay nt as far as comparing it with the signage on this other building. I think the signs on this building look a whole lot better than the signs on this I etail building. Brad says that the second building that's going to be bul It is going to be loaded with signs. I think that sounds terrible. I meal it sounds hideous. It sounds. Brad ; ohnson: I think the point is that we are allowed. One thing I object, to this whole discussion is your job, as I understand it, is %o interl.ret the ordinance. All I'm hearing so far is personal opinions. And you w~,nder why we wonder what's going on. You have an ordinance and all I hear .hen I come to these things is we should stick by t~e ordinance. You'r supposed to interpret those. Ahren: : I think the City generously didn't make you comply with the ordin nce to begin with so we're in kind of a different situation at this time. Brad Emmin, have , 'ohnson: In what way? ~s: Okay. Brad, you've had your shot and it's time for her now to to express her opinions. Go ahead. Plann March Ahren~ don't i nchel appro~ approl .ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 15 : I don't see that, I don't know why they're going through this s for. I agree, 6 inches to increase a sign seems ridiculous· I even know why they're going through this process to increase a sign 6 · I don't know what benefit that has. The outside sign, if it was ed and if it was allowed by the ordinance, I think maybe we should 'e it. I don't think that the size. I think the size is an issue and I thi~k it should be approved as presented with just the name of the build!ng, whatever that is now in front of it and not to have additional adver .ising for tenants inside. That's it. Emm i n IS: Okay, Jeff. Farma es: Well a lot of the comments that she made I think are relevant to what e're talking about here· I think this was a problem before it ever came n front of us here. Although I will agree that a matter of personal opini ,n does get into some of this when you're interpretting these things. Your :omment is that's not what we're supposed to be doing but I do think that ,hat we should make comments that reflect the overall look of our city· I think that's part of, or at least that was part of the questions I was a :ked when I interviewed for the Commission. When it comes to signage I quei:tion two things and I've heard this comment made over and over again. The dl fference between a retail building and a commercial building. If the purpol:e of the signage is identification, as some of the comments that you made sas to identify the tenant, but how does one distinquish between where you'vt been identified and where you're advertising? For instance, you have signs on the original building that have the same type face. T hey' sign Brad Farma type Brad Farma sign Brad Farma Brad a eta backl actua the the that e a dark band and they have white type. Then you've got a center ,hat's in a different type face and a different color coordination. 'ohnson: Temporary. es: Okay. And you've got this gold one over here in a different ace again. I believe the American Family logo is in red is it not? 'ohnson: No. :es: But the type I believe is in red. You have the base background ut this logo itself is in red. 'ohnson: Not in the sign we're proposing. :es: Not in the sign you're proposing? So it'd just be in black? ohnson: Like ...plate. It's a backlit sign. The American Family is :dard red. The one that they currently have over on 79th Street is a t sign with three colors. This one will be one color. Two colors ly. It's white plexiglass with aluminum over it. The aluminum is .lot of the sign band and then they've cut the aluminum to show what gn, that's how the light comes through. You have a layer of aluminum going to be, what color? Bob C, 3eland: Burgandy. Plann March Brad so it Farma plexi. Brad that Farma have Brad that ' Farma be sol Goldst Brad was a it wa,, And w, kind City. Farma that that going circul type build look ! thi Brad Farma that clien Brad no co appro top o' in or~ variol may hi band spiri In ad, put i ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 16 'ohnson: Burgandy. And then they put a white plexiglass behind that shows through. And behind that they light it. :es: So the definition of your character is if you have a white ~lass, it's burgandy? 'ohnson: There's white plexiglass and burgandy in the little look ou see there. It's Just the reverse of what you print. :es: Okay, so we have white letters on a burgandy background? Or you white background with burgandy letters? ohnson: It's burgandy on white. You have to see a sign and I agree, confusing. es: The point I'm trying to make here I guess is that there seems to e sort of attempt here to stand out from the other signs. Well, .ar Mortgage versus the Business Health Services. 'ohnson: We probably will admit at this particular point that that mistake. I now know that. It just got through the whole process and in the lease that the tenant required that he have gold lettering. .'ye gone back to him and suggested, because we agree it does look f funny, that he change it but that was approved both by us and the es: I think the end purpose of what I'm trying to get at here is .henever you have an issue or you have a client coming in, I'm sure ubject to their interpretation, their franchise or whatever, they're to want the most identification that is possible under the .stances. And when you're interpretting these ordinances as to what f sign you can build, I'm sure on one hand you want the best looking ng possible. On the other hand, you want the client. $o when we t these type of things, it certainly isn't enhancing your building. k you'd admit that. You made the comment. ohnson: The gold? es: Well, the gold one or adding on these signs. These are issues ou are doing as a matter of economic necessity. Correct? To get the ohnson: The current trend is, if you look at Town Square, there is sistency to the lettering and there's a sign band that's imately 2 feet high. Maybe it's 3 feet high. That runs across the that building. And you can any, because this is what is necessary er to attract a tenant, and it can have a logo. They can have s colored signs and there's no consistency to the lettering. Now we ve made a mistake on this building by having too narrow of a sign nd we've identified it so much that we didn't get the free kind of that we have over at Town Square. I think we'll say that's true. ition to that, our first two tenants were the same tenants and they the same type of sign to balance out. One was on one hand in the Plann March left ...th. appro have don't life Farina Brad Farma ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 17 .nd you've got the, what do you call it? The Business Health which is standard lettering... Now Market Square, the new one, has imately the same thing as Town Square has. It's got a band. It will rea form letters. I don't know what I'm trying to get to. Ne really feel that an American Family logo up on a sign band at this point in s a good idea the way that is set up and that's our decision. es: But why is that? Is that your client or is that you? ohnson: That would be me. :es: So you feel that. · .appearance of the building? Brad {'ohnson: ...yellow sign, I'd have to live with a logo that would proba$,ly look out of place. It'd be different if everyone had a logo. Ne try t~ Farma Brad Farma Brad sign Farma would Bob C. inter, at Ci' they said, there want was t peopll but.. Farmal Bob C< Farma what the h 8tad point appro~ set. for Ti balance them ourselves. es: Now the star next to the Goldstar Mortgage, is that? ohnson: That's a logo. es: That is a logo? ohnson: Yeah. That's a permitted use in the downtown area on the and. es: But you don't feel that the American State Farm Insurance logo look good say in that center area? 3eland: That's strictly just a matter of opinion. It's very sting this whole conversation because I can remember being over here y Hall with the previous Planner and the consultant to the City where old us when this project was still on the drawing board and they we don't want a plain building. You've got to get some signage in They've got to be multi-colored. Ne want it close to the road. We .xciting. We want some interest. And that's what they said. That e tone of the project. And that's the way it was set. Now you look at things differently. Well you're certainly entitled to es: You're misinterpretting. :eland: ...there was a different tone set early on for this. ~s: You're misinterpretting my question. My question to you was, as the motivation for the story here as to how these signs, what was story behind these signs being different? ohnson: All those signs fit in the sign band. And that, from our of view, would have been okay and from the City's point of view. We ed the signs and the City approved the signs. Once the band has been The same for Town Square. I mean we could have had the same signs wn Square as we had here. Plann March FaTma corre, it up condil propo~ ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 18 :es: Well, I'm still unclear. Maybe I'm not listening to you tIy but I am unclear as to the motivation why you don't want to put on that sign band? Why your client doesn't or if your cItent is ionaI as to it being in that corner down in the way it's being ed here? Brad ~ohnson: We had heard the last meeting five. When we came out of this~ast meeting five tenants on the sign band. One sign per little step in an out. Five signs. That's what we heard. $o we never presented to them $hat they could do it any other way. I don't think we could do the logo. Ne could say American Family Insurance. Farma es: Why is that? Brad ohnson: It's just not wide enough. Farma es: $o the size would be too small if that roof was up and above there for the type size is what you're saying? Brad ohnson: You can't go outside the sign band to actually accomplish what think their logo does... Farma es: Now do you interpret that or does your client as to how big? I mean s there a certain point size on that type? Brad ohnson: The client. Farma es: The client does? Brad ohnson: If we're going to do the logo, you have to do... Farma es: No, I'm talking about the size of the sign for the size of the type. The size of the type as it's read from the street. Brad {ohnson: They have a sign standard that says American Family or Century 21 or any of those places. There's a certain relationship that they ~ave said in their franchise and whatever and you just try to work that ds much as possible into the ordinances. The scale of that... Farms you b can r~ Emm i nl feeli' Farma with Emm i n Batzl have es: I guess that answers as manx questions as I have. I agree with some extent that that ordinance is vague and I hope that maybe we ctify some of that in the future here. s: Do you have anything on the directory sign in the back? Any gs about it one way or the other? es: I feel it serves it's purpose. I guess I don't see a problem ti I don't have a problem on the other side of the parking lot. s: Okay, Brian? : Directory sign in the back, thumbs up for me. I think that we very right to be looking at this how we're looking at it given the Plann March' way ti you ' 1. of thl the w~ one b~ they' consi of re 6mmi n ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 19 ~e building was developed and the conditions and everything else. As remember from the last time, I thought that this building was kind equivalent to a downtown Excelsior area. I liked the signs. I hate y the applicant keeps on coming in here and I would say let's do this ~t kind of a read my lips. No more signs. ! can't believe that e obviously in here. They want another tenant and for economic lerations they're going to come in and try and brow beat us and ! kind ~ent that attitude. Is: Annette? Ellso~ I don't have a problem with the directory sign. I agree with Brad thatt ere's differences in the SIC codes and things like that. I kept think ng to myself that the difference I always see with Town Square and all ti sign. make we kind. thingl that and t the d' thing prefel space it on then That' Emm i n Conra, size , Kraus: Conra, Kraus: the n~ devel( what 1 Squar~ the b~ The st the t~ latitL attra¢ Conrac name ¢ That's ,ese others is that they actually people draw people in because of the You're going to go and buy something and would an insurance sign ~e stop and say, gee honey let's go in and talk about insurance while driving by. You know it's these types of businesses aren't that You're looking them up in the Yellow Pages and a lot of people say like we are in the Medical Arts Building or they say things like imply because they're that type of business that still draw people ~ey don't have all the signage. I think that they don't have nearly op-in traffic that Town Square type of take-out chow main would and like that. But if the ordinance allows them to have that, I'd it be up on the wall. It's funny, I would rather give up another on that wall and make a small American Family in the band then to put the ground there. But if the ordinance allows it on the ground, would want to take away 6 inches and make it as small as possible. it. s: Ladd? : Paul, the standards for an identification sign. What, other than are there standards? : In our ordinance? : Kind of like what can go on? : No. And that's why we've resorted to basically sign covenants on wet developments because not only does it often not give the per what they want, which isn't the case here, but it doesn't achieve he City wants. Now for example Town Center, or I'm sorry. Market has signage that's guided as to type. I mean I think it's all like cklit individual letters. The size of the sign area is regulated. ze of the sign area relative to the tenant and the prtoritization of nants is regulated. Within those guidelines they have a lot of de. They can do different colored signs and that can look tire. : So it's no unique. This-is not a precedent where you have the f the building or the name of the group of offices plus a tenant? not a unique thing? · Plann March Kraus relun Conral signs' Krausl they Conra signs' KTaUSi That't Conra( Short, the S downt, have else? Kraus yOU'r~ It's tenan' facetl had 3 Conra~ Kraus: prett' level It id, Conra, back, allow, in th~ we co there per b, back Kraus Conra, don't agreef Basic, maybe not h. ,ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 20 Well, it's not unique in Chanhassen to date and I'm real :tant to rely on our past experience. Tell me if you had your druthers, what would you do with pylon : That they should identify the property, the building itself and if ant to identify a tenant, it should be the major tenant. : But your preference would probably not be for lO foot high pylon : No, that's a quirk in the ordinance and I wouldn't defend that. wrong but that's the way it is. : Do you have a vision? What you just gave me would be a vision. r signs. Really to get rid of some of the clutter or the ugliness of nclair sign or a gas station sign, we really don't want that in wn. Are there other characteristics to these signs? They literally o be lit at night to be of significant use but is there anything And we're getting off a little bit Brad. I'm just kind of curious. : We don't mind monument signs being lit or being prominent but when monumenting something you're sticking it out by the right-of-way. 0 feet back from the street. It's a different kind of sign than a sign. I was just talking to Sharmin and I was saying somewhat ously what if this was a 5 story building or 4 story building? We'd sign bands. I mean the issue. : You like your identification signs to be kind of classy don't you? : Yes and often times they're landscaped. They're lit. They're expensive things for a developer to do. And frankly we, at a staff we like the Brooke's pylon sign. We think that works pretty well. ntifies the center and the primarily tenant. : When the City Council allowed the 5 bands on the front and the what was it that, you know originally there were only 5 bands to be d and then some of us decided that it was appropriate to have the 5 back. What ordinance were we concerned with? What guideline were cerned with when we granted the $ on the back as well as the 5. Was something? Was it common sense type of issue or was there a one sign ilding? Was it a one sign per street frontage type of deal and the ida wasn't on the street frontage? : To be honest I don't know. We didn't support that. : I know you didn't. You and 3can were in the same camp. When, I want to belabor this and I'm sorry. You believed you had a sign ant and therefore your inflexibility on this one. Is that the right? llw them came in under signed in terms of what would be permitted and we went and allowed some things that typically our ordinance might ve granted but I'm just kind of curious about the fact that they Plann March could have to me you hi KTaU$~ appro~ that ~ Conra~ and n, Perso This time. think and I I don produ~ taste becau tough anywal I thi~ and t< at th, probat think not wi do it don't Chanh~ the fL infor~ pratt) what ~ put ur there, in what' have 1itt1 care I hea' grote.~ playi probl, makin( not t want talk same have .ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 21 come back because they still have some liberties. They still may =oma more tenants and I think that the future is a little bit unclear as to how we control this one Paul. But your interpretation is once ~ve a sign package, that's it and no changes unless you go through a :s right? : That's exactly the case. To us that's no different than you lng an architectural plan for a building. We're there to make sure .hat happens. : So it's not like we had the perfect package before? It was there w we're going through the process? Okay. Just a few things. lal opinion. I don't care if it's retail sales or service sales. :ountry is really, you know this is the same spiel I gave you the last Businesses need signage. They absolutely have to have it and I we, you know I think signage can improve the looks if it's done well just don't have any problem at all making sure that there's signage. t care if it's an office building or a retail center where you buy ts. I think signage has to be. The question in my mind is how ully it's done· I think our sign ordinance is the biggest pain ~e you can never, they're always 50 pages long and they're just a real thing to develop standards for. There's all different situations but , I don't have a problem at all with the directory sign in the back. k when you take a look at it, common sense tells you that it's fine add a few inches here or there, there's just no problem. As I look informational sign or the identification sign on the front, we 1y approved something before. I wouldn't design it this way. I this is low impact visibility the way they're doing this. This is at I would be doing but this is what their decision is as to how to And again, I think it's low impact. When you take a look at it, I think it's, I just believe it's not doing, it's not hurting ssen's aesthetic appeal in downtown by allowing it. My concern is. tufa. My concern is we don't have standards really for what these ational or identification signs should be. They can be really · They can be a corner stone. And I looked at this and I'm not sure e can do where they need signage. I Just don't know that we could something that's really significant in that little area that's So basically my biggest concern right now is that whatever they put thetically fits, and I don't know that right now. The quality of been presented to me tonight doesn't tell me anything and so I don't problem with the bands and the signage up there. There's a few problems here and there but I don't see that a big deal but [ do bout the quality of the signs that's going in. They have to relate. d the words but I would have to make sure that staff. I don't want a qua sign coming out of there. I really don't and when you start g with illumination, I get a little bit concerned. $o I don't have a m with what's being requested tonight. I do have a problem with sure that it's aesthetically pleasing and again as I say, this is e sign the way I'd solve the problem but that's the way they owners o solve it. That's okay. The only other thing I think we should ~bout is what if they come back again. Are we going to go through the thing? Do we have a package deal? The applicant says no. We don't ~ package deal. We may want to come back. We may have additional Plann Ma~ch need~ this Emmin~ in th~ sign? Conra~ e I eme' not c~ it he~ diffei Emm i n ConTa staff everyl I'd pl Erhar with KTaUS Erhar Kraus then requi a cov Erhar form Al-Ja Brad a PUD have need Krausl the accepl Erhar Kraus one , appro site admin ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 22 nd maybe we have to decide whether we have a package deal tonight and s it or we'll entertain other signage changes. That's all I've got. ~s: Can I ask, do I hear you saying you don't mind the idea of a sign front of the building as it's proposed as long as it's not an ugly : Aesthetically pleasing. It should fit in with what the signage ts that they've already got. It sounded like they have those. I'm nvinced. You know I haven't seen the howe. How they're going to do e. I just really have to be comfortable that it's not a glaringly ent appearing sign than what's there. That's my biggest concern. Is: So would you want to see that before we acted on it? : Would I want to see it? Somebody should. I don't care if it's City Council. I don't know that I need to give my. You know ody's got their own personal opinion of what beauty is and I guess efer somebody has to do it. ,: Paul you mentioned the word, you mentioned that we had a covenant 'own Square signage? : Yes. : Do we have a covenant with the owners of this building? : Well, you know I don't think the terminology was as sophisticated ut essentially yes. You had a site plan with some specific signage ements that were conditions of approval. I consider that the same as ,nant. What's the, with Town Square what's the, in your mind what's the covenant there? f: It was designed by Fred Hoisington. 'ohnson: The difference between the two projects is that this is not ...PUD by definition. You can vary from the ordinances but you .o have a pack when it's all over with. And the CBD because you don't .he PUD benefits in order to do a building on a small lot... : The question here though becomes one of is there a document called gn covenant that's recorded with the property that the City's ed and has some legal standing. : We have that with Town Square? : There is a separate document with Town Square. This one no. This hen you approved the building you conditioned it on a sign plan al. You then approved that sign plan. It became a portion of the .lan at that point. I sort of regard the two as the same but stratively they're a little different I guess. Plant March Erbar Let ' feel Kraus Erhar Kraus bette Erhar Kraus Erhar Kraus ordin, ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 23 : If you were, if this building, if this was going to come in. say it was a flat piece of ground today and they came in and you I sense that you would want to have a separate sign covenant if this new project today or did I misinterpret· That's correct. Which? That we'd want a separate document that was recorded that had some legal standing. Alright, and that's because you feel the ordinance is too vague? Yeah· Or do you just think that's the way signs ought to be managed? Well in my own personal opinion, this goes beyond what the nce is telling us. Yes, I think it's better for all concerned to have ~ sign package that's consistent architecturally with the building· Thatthe City buys into· The developer buys into that guides, you know tenan;s will come in and ask for the stars but you lay a covenant out and yOU S, Erhar: Krausl Erhar' We ca but t chang, sign there coven~ Brad Erhar Ameri~ Kraus= that Erhar for band Kraus Erbar this is all you can get. : Do other cities do it that way? : Oh sure. : You've got a situation here where you've got a no win situation. talk about whether you like signs or whether you don't like signs at changes every minute. Every tenant the situation's going to · You're going to have the building owner wanting to have another or every tenant that wants the signs bigger. Brad you mentioned 's a 1 foot height limit on that sign. Where is that? If there's no nt, then why is there a 1 foot height limit on the band? ohnson: We have a sign band that we created. · : So it's your own deal. So if you want to put a 1 1/2 foot an Family sign up there, that has nothing to do with the city. : Except that the sign band is part of the architectural elevation as approved with the building. : But what I 'm hearing here is that someone's arguing that that was at day but they can come back anytime and change it to a 2 foot sign ,ecause our ordinance allows it. : I think that's sort of what you're hearing. : But that's not right or what? Plant March Batzl ConTa, Erhar Plann misre. that is th what point or anI and w, that terri work. we're back city a pac this on th Brad I you k Erhar it's it's ma ke have you ' negot consi~ somet this and 8tad sugge said with l to 7 that I can b~ this, foot. littll thing Erhar~ direcl adver ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 24 : That's not the City's position. : The City said it was granted once. : But what I'm sensing here is that, and maybe I'm misreading the ng Commission, is that Nm're kind of going along. And maybe I'm lding the group here a little bit. It just bothers mm that I guess ;e're going to have to go through that. First of all what bothers me it the applicant expects to get this through. I think you do and at )oint do you stop. At what point do we stop having meetings? At what , you know 8ill 8oyt talked about a 14 foot sign and everything, or 10 ,thing and somebody expected that we were going to have a 10 foot sign spent a lot of money getting this into a document and how long does o on? I guess the other side of that is I guess the whole band looks ,le today. Whatever you guys came up with for an approach, didn't I think Brad...says it doesn't work. I guess I'd like to see if right out on a limb, negotiate a covenant so we don't have to come )ere with another meeting and spends hours and thousands of dollars of ioney on another meeting and money from these guys and let's negotiate ~age. Make a covenant that's going to end it. I personally think at )oint, I think the band around Town Square looks better than the signs s building. 'ohnson: ...Town Square and the lead tenant chose small signs, small, tow what you see. : The suggestion that I would have is,'in the first place I think .ind of ridiculous to make the identification sign two purpose. If .dentification sign, make it the title of the building and negotiate, continuous band around the building. I think it looks better if you ogos up there in multiple colors and put some character into it. If going to have signs, then let's put some character into it and ate a covenant to give them the signs they need. Keep some tency so the identification sign is the identification sign. Not ing else that they'll come back and say now I want American Family on ide and another one on this side because we don't have the band space 's going to go on and on and negotiate a covenant. ohnson: The original plan on this was to have a band like you ~ted with as many tehants as we wanted. We came back and somebody ~ell you can only have 5 tenants. We don't have this kind of problem larket Square because, over here at Town Square because if we expand ~enants or 10 tenants, there's no limit as long as their sign is in ,and. And this particular one, because you limited the number that in the band, somebody has limited it. I also think, and I told Bob the band is a little narrow and we made that decision by about a And that's because we put that burgandy thing in there. It's a narrow to accomplish what we have over there. It's an architectural : In summary, I guess I don't care about the 6 inches on the cry sign. I don't think it makes sense to have both an occupant .ising sign and building identification sign on one sign and I think Plann March we sh~ them adequ Emmin~ Conra~ Emm i n think dba 1 ' the o make any p that ' have like someh as the b And s~ exten' have I agr have if th and I any si don't may w~ rethi, again Ameri, that. to ad, Bob C~ desirl appro~ level resis' Emmin anyth I don askinl Brad what l signs we ha~ see Mi think ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 25 ,uld, I'd like to see this go back and negotiate a covenant that gives whole fresh look at that band. Where you allow them to have te signage up there for occupants. IS: Okay. I agree with everybody. Is there a motion? : We've got 6 different approaches here. s: I don't know. I guess where I come down on this is, I don't we're really got, I don't have any problem with saying to Brad a a deal. They made a deal with the City here and I don't care what dinance says, they made the deal and we certainly have every right to ,hem stick with it if we want to. Having that said, I also don't have 'oblem with them coming back and asking for modifications· I think the way the system's got to work a little bit. That doesn't mean we o give it to them· And I really, I don't think it's fair, I don't ,he position that Brad took that because the ordinance allows it that ,w we have to give it to him. That simply is not, that's wrong as far concerned. I think what they were allowed, if it was ambiguous in ginning, was certainly clarified last year when we looked at this. I think they've been treated fairly and a deal's a deal to some · The directory sign in the back, if they want it 6 inches bigger, I bsolutely no problem with that. That's fine. The sign in the front, ,e with Tim, ought to be a building identification sign and shouldn't nybody on it other than the name of the building. American Family, y're going to go in that building, is ooing to have to have a sign have no idea on how you're going to accomplish that. I don't have ~ggestions for you but I don't want to see it down on that sign. I know what else to say. Somehow American Family needs a sign and you 11 have to come back and do what Tim suggested and start a process to k all of the signs on the 'building and we'll have to look at it I don't think that the, I personally would not like to see the an Family logo up on the sign band but I might change my. mind on Those are my comments I guess. Do you have anything else you want back there? peland: I have one thing that we're not here tonight because of our to... The only reason we're here is because the staff wouldn't e, they didn't consider this minor enough to approve it at their In other words, we didn't want to have this public hearing. We ,ed it... Is: I don't have any problem with you coming in here and asking for .ng. I really don't. I think that's the way we're set up to work so t resent or think there's anything wrong with you coming in and for anything you want· ohnson: Probably the way to solve the problem is a little bit like 'gu're saying, what Tim says and what everybody else says. Get the on the sign band and originally we didn't have a limit. We just knew a limited amount of space but not limit the number of tenants which, rket Square if you had gone in and said, okay. You wouldn't even this way but you can only have sign for $ tenants. You would have Plann March heard' could half patio cutte~ them. becau strip that' There be balam funny I thi Emmi n this for u Erhar Ahren to ap Emmin Brad, we sh~ Emmim not , . Erhar~ denia. Conra~ Erhar separ Brad Bob C recoml Erhar reque Emmi nt build Kraus to th~ .ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 26 us scream and holler. We knew we were.going to have more. So if we just limit ourselves to a sign area there, I don't think we'd have .his discussion and that's originally how we started out. At some of time somebody said, we only want, we want to do the cookie · There's 5 spots· That's what we want and that's where we put We possibly made a couple of mistakes in the design of the sign band e we went in and really made it narro~ by painting those little ,s on that you see on the, they're architectural stripes. We said where the signs are going. You don't see that on Town Square. is no point and we can come back and talk about that and that might solution. Because then it's our Job to just kind of keep it ed. Right now it's so tight that if we go beyond that, it looks and everybody's designing their signs to fit into those little spots. ~k you're right about that. ~s: Would you have any feeling about whether you'd want us to act on ,r whether you'd want to table it while you try and work something out to look at again? : We could move on the directory sign tonight and table the front. : Well the sign in front isn't going to go the way, we're not going rove that it sounds like anyway... is: I think you're right. Brad, I'm waiting for you. 'ohnson: I'm talking to the owner of the building and he feels that ,uld go ahead. Is: Okay. Alright, does anyone else have any comments about this? If .s there a motion? : Well I'll just move to say the Planning Commission recommends to the signage change I guess. : Do you want to approve the directory sign and deny? : Well I know the applicants Just asked us, would you want us to te the two issues? 'ohnson: Well it would help. ,peland: If you're not going to recommend.approval for both, then mend approval for one. .: Okay. I'll move to approve the change to the directory sign as :ted by the applicant. And by the directory sign we're talking about the sign behind the Okay. Alright we've got a motion. Is there a second? : Question. Did you want to include in the motion your guidance as suggestion about resubmitting something around the sign band? Plan ng Commission Meeting Marc 20, 1991 - Page 27 Emmi Is: No. I think the Minutes are clear on that. Is there a second? Conr : Second · Emmi ~s: Is there discussion on the motion? Conr = Basically what we would entertain. No. That's not part of the moti . Basically Tim is not saying anything about what we do from here. Just fact that we're looking at, we approve the directory sign and we ha, t given staff direction with this motion. Erha : We're only asking the 6 inches. 5 feet. That's all. Conr : And so it's up to us whether would want, well it'd be up to the appl to carry this through to City Council or to come back with regard to particular identification sign. Emmi ~s: Or how to change all of the signage on the building to maybe a dif' nt kind of concept or whatever. Co : You know just out of curiousity, are we open to looking. You know we'r,, sending some signals here and I think regardless of what are motions are, think the signals are real important. Are we open to looking at that and? Emminls: Let's do this. Let's call a question on the motion and then let' discuss. Give them whatever direction people feel like they want to, if t ,y haven't already done it in their comments. Is there any other d ion on the motion? Let's call the question. Er sign the moved, Conrad seconded that the Planning Commission recommend to the site plan for the Medical Arts Building to approve the directory proposed. All voted in favor except Brian Batzli who opposed and carried with a vote of 6 to 1. Emmi is: Okay, Brian tell us why you're opposed. Batzl : I would make it a condition that they don't get any more signs after this. This is it and this is the full and final agreement and I would also vote to approve the sign they've got in front· Emmin.~s: Okay. Now as far as any direction to the applicant. Ladd, do you w,,nt to? · Erhar' : Do you want to vote on the other one first? Emmin~ s: What? Erhar' : Do you want to vote on the front sign first? Before we give direc' ion to the applicant so we know where the vote is. Conra, : That's not part of your motion. You didn't include that. Planr March Ellso Erhar rear appli Emmin appro We ~ ve Erhar denia Emm i n is th, here Conral Erhar Emmin Conra, Emmin,, Ellso' said Conra up th, YOU 'ri Brad Conra let's Brad left. we ad and w~ Conra~ that as lo Brad I lis diffel we COl ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 28 : You can only have one motion. : I thought Steve that you wanted to vote on both the front and the nd then give. If that gets denied, then give our opinion to the ;ant. la: No. What I understand we've done here, just to recap. We've ,ed the sign on the back of the property and that's all. Otherwise denied what they're asked for. : Okay. I thought specifically we were going to take a vote on the of the rest of it so it was clear in the Minutes. s: No. That's done with what we did, as far as I'm concerned. Now =re any direction? I think Ladd wants to ask if there's sentiment up f people would look at. : Changing the sign band. Yeah. But Tim you obviously feel it's. : You've got mine. s: Would you Ladd? : Yeah. s: Yeah, I would too. Annette? : If it was tastefully and aethetically done well. It's hard to say the board. It could come in 10 feet tall and then you said, now you he sign... : I don't realistically you're not going to change what you've got re. You've got a lot of money into your signage right now don't you? not going to go out in the next. ohnson: The tenants do. : And the tenants aren't really going to go out and say oh boy, change our signage. 'ohnson: We could come back with signage... I've got the middle There is no sign there. If we come back and handle that and then as the other ones. They were limited to 5 total tenants on the front 'ye got a problem. Let us kind of handle that area, we're okay. The question really is here, and I don't know. Maybe it's not of a deal. Do we feel committed to S or do we feel open to multi as it's designed well? 'ohnson: My point is I think we were a little bit overly rigid on how .shed to you and look at Town Square and I keep saying what's the ence. We were very rigidly defined on our own, not by you, on where .Id put the band. It doesn't look... Plann March Ahren we hal TeasoI wante, They the s Brad , other Emmi n,, Ahren~ Brad Ahren the p' we ha, Conral judgm~ Emmi n Conra, Emm i n anothl that of si build learn Ahren, that over We U8 tenan Emmi n could mean Ahren appro Emmin Ahren ConTa heari ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 29 : I guess I have trouble opening up the band issue. It seems to me e very little control over that anyway. Brad's saying that the Goldstar looks the way it does, which is not the way we would have it to look is because it slipped through the cracks of the lease. ct a sign and they entered into an agreement with the tenant to have gn the way it is and they got it that way. iohnson: One of the reasons it doesn't look very good is all the signs are white. Is: Right. : Well yeah. Whatever the problem is. ohnson: It just didn't work. : Well what I'm saying is how you got to the problem. You got to oblem because everything slipped through the cracks. It's not like control over the method. : It's real interesting. We're getting into some aesthetic nts here but just out of. is: That's fair. : We love it don't we when it gets arbitrary like this. s: No, but I think this is fair. They talk about bringing in ,r building and we're getting a lot of practical experience on how )ther building's going to look. Brad says it's coming back with a lot ;nage and I think we're going to be real fussy. If they get that ng, there's going to be a lot of fussiness with signs and we'll have ,d a lot from this. I don't want to get into the specifics. : I don't want to talk about that either but what my point is is e're talking about having control over what it's going to loo like ~hether it's going to look nice or bad according to whatever standards but do we really have any control if this is something that the decides anyway in a lease? s: Well we could, I suppose, when we limited them to 5 sign bands we have said they'll all be the same color. There will be no logos. I .here are whole bunch of things we could have said. : I don't think we need to do that. I think they may need to be ed by the staff or something. is: Right, but there are ways you could limit that if you wanted to. : Oh sure. Sure. Are we looking for multi-colored signage on this building? I'm that. I'm just going to tell you another personal... Plan ng Commission Meeting Marc , 1991 - Page 30 Emmin Is: Well Tim. Conra : Yeah, I guess Tim. It's probably Tim. Erhar : I'm color blind. Conra : Tim's whispering in my ear and I'm assuming that he's looking for ever ody. The signage that is there is really low impact right now folks. It rellly is. When you get white on a burgandy at a foot high, we're not talkilg about breaking anybody's eyeballs in terms of gaudiness. You may be re. lcting to, I'm not sure what everybody's reacting to aesthetically here >ut again, so I just don't want to send a signal that says we want flash . I think signage on this kind of building should be very practical. It sh uld identify who's there but I Just don't feel it should be literally the bicklit, multi-colored logoish that we put on a retail store because that stuff can be very attractive on a retail center. I don't know that it fits )n this particular. I know it doesn't fit on this particular building so ag;lin, just from my personal standpoint, I don't want the flashy stuff and I think they've got practical signs that work really well to help peopl, identify where services are. They're not going to stop you in your track., nI don't mind what we really have here other than the gold color but a. ai . Ahren: : I think we need some design standards. We obviously don't, have any. We have 7 people up here with different opinions. Conra, : You're right. We'd all be in a different boat. If we were to figur, it out Joan, we'd all be different. Richa' d Wing: My name is Richard Wing and I'm going to speak as a resident. 3can has commented on the gateway appearance of our city. You come n on TH lO1 and we go through the Amoco station and we go through a Valvo ine Oil Change. Now even though it's going to be the best designed place which I think we can take pride in. And as we come into Chanhassen, both he Mayor has commented on the gateway affect of our city. The bigge ;t building and the largest building, the most significant building in our g. Lteway is the building we're discussing here and I'm going to just urge ,ou to be very conservative and if in doubt, to err on the side of being conservative because that is a gateway building. I would like to see it as a professional building. I think I would like to see it classy. I don't want to see a mass of color. That's a classy building right now and as I looking at these plans, I think there's a trend to get away from that lassiness. $o if in doubt, my personal feelings are that you err, if you hve to make a decision, err on a conservative side and let's worry about this in the future. I would have a real hard time dressing that build ng up with signs. That is a gateway building. That is a major impac' visually coming into the city and I think we have to treat that with speci. 1 care. It's a very unique location. Emmin~ s: Alright. Unless somebody's really burning to make more comments on th s, let's have an end to it. Does anyone else want to say anything? Plann ng Commission Meeting March 20, 1991 - Page 31 Conral : Ah yeah. Signage is just so much fun. This is really great. I would like to, and I speak for myself. I don't know Steve where you're going If there's a motion coming here or if we're just going to let it go but I think as we look at that band, the challenge should be for, you know as we open, as we may give more flexibility to that band, I'd sure like to see a better sign for the whole building. In other words, what we were talki'l~ about identification sign, I think that's going to make the build .ng seem that much more significant. If we talk about it, well perso lally I'd like to see that identification sign as a significant, good looki ig sign versus putting advertising messages on it. Emmin~ ,s: I agree. Okay. grad ohnson: Can I ask one question? Emmin .s: Yeah. Brad ohnson: That's my own. The owner doesn't agree with it. If we were to ki~d of dress up the band. Try to figure out some flexibility that we don't have, would you guys go along with that? Is that what I hear you saying? As long as we come with some consistency and it keeps the building looki ,g okay? Emmin~ s: Yeah. I think that's what we're saying. But you'll have to work with staff on that. We're not in the business of designing bands. Brad ohnson: ...have Bob do that. Emmin;s: Yeah. I think that's what I hear too. APPR0tAL OF MINUTES: Chairman Emmings noted the Minutes of the Planning Commi~ision meeting dated April 6, 1991 as presented. OPEN iISCUSSION: PL TERRY PUD ORDINRNCE BY ~[OHN SHRRP~OW OF ~N~HLGREN. ~OW ~D UB4~ R~flD OF ~UNDGREN BROTHERS CONSTRUCTION. Paul [rauss gave a short presentation on the background of the item and then .ntroduced John Shardlow and Terry Forbord who each gave slide presentations on proposed amendments to the Planned Unit Development Ordin~ nce. Emmini s: I don't know if this is too obvious a question. Maybe I'm just not g~mtting it but in a lot of ways it would seem to me to be simpler for a devel4~per to just make one of those good old fashion subdivisions where you put i' blocks of lots. What's in it for a developer? Why are the PUD's desir~ able for a developer? Is it basically the flexibility so they're not confr,~nted with rigid standards or that they can make a higher quality devel ,pment that will be better in the marketplace? What's the advantage for t ,e developer? Plann ng Commission Meeting March 20, 1991 - Page 32 3chh !hardlow: Well I would say it depends on the nature of what you're tryinI to develop. What Terry was talking about, when he showed you some examples of reduced front yard setbacks, reduced side yard setbacks. What you w, re getting in exchange for that were maybe some enhanced ponds and some ther design features so the overall affect of it was still positive with he trees, open space and so forth. But the flexibility allows them to ge more density and reduce their development co~ts on the residential side. Emmin. s: And I was real impressed with those slides. I thought those short~,r front yards didn't offend me any. Ellsol : Was that the 9,000? Emminl s: Yeah even in the 9,000. I didn't know we had 9,000, small lots like t.hat and ~ thought they looked great. I think it's pretty impressive mysel! . Terry Forbord: Can I ask you a question? Emmin.~s: Yeah, sure. Terry bord: I'm Terry Forbord. The benefit to us is that it allows us to do different things. I'm not necessarily going to say you make more money doing a PUD because the costs are more. The most money we could make is if we went in there with a grid system and cut down every single tree and 1 ,veled that site so there was no grade to it. That's how you make money and you see some people that do that today but for us, I mean this is our 1 fa. We do this because we like to do it too. It's not that we're just .tying to make a living at it. But it really makes something nice and we do 't have to cut down trees and we can enhance a wetland that's already there and we can provide a housing type that somebody wouldn't normally be able .o afford i~ I had to put them on a 15,000 or a 20,000 square foot lot. $o all of a sudden, instead of just one housing product type, I can maybe have 4 and so I'm meeting a more diverse group of people who want to come nd move into a community. As you know, because I heard each of you talk it during the process of the MUSA expansion, there was no capac so all of a sudden lots in Chanhassen were all $50,000.00 and up and s~that's the only kind of housing you could get. Now with more capacl tYl and more land available, you'll start seeing more creativity hopef~.lly from the development community. Emminss: John, when you talked you talked about the fact that we should, youd~,n,t think, zone areas into PUD. We should leave underlying zoning and ti come encou 3chh that indus commu freew ,eh let people, that would leave people with the opportunity to either n under some kind of a standard subdivision or go PUD. If we want to age that PUD, how do we get them to do that? ,hardlow: That's a really good question. There have been some cities ,ave come up with planned residential district zoning. Planned .rial district zoning. Now at one point one of the northwest ~ities had a planned industrial district all along one of the .yr. The idea was there that sort of come in and we'll tell you what Plant March you c down stand the 0 down enfor of ma encou reaso You d Emmi n talke 3ohn to do the f devel mode it, y I'll get b admin stand ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 33 n do with your land you know and that's illegal. When you get right o it, the City has the authority to adopt an ordinance and set ~rds. And if you're going through planned unit development, it gives >portunity to negotiate different standards but when you boil it all ~o what you have the authority to enforce, you have the authority to :e an ordinance. And is it reasonable to have an ordinance that sort (em up the mtandardm am you 8o alono? Of course not. $o how you 'age people to go planned unit development is you first of all have a ~able process so it's not some convoluted deal that takes forever. >n't know what you've got until the building's done if you will. ~s: And also not to, I suppose to demonstrate the attitudes that you about. hardlow: Absolutely. And if the attitude isn't right, who's going it? I mean the developer's aren't stupid for the most part... But ct of the matter is, people aren't going to go through a planned unit )pment process if they can'go through. If you're in a confortational ith the city and you have a piece of property and you want to develop u're going to say okay. We're zoned R-l, single family residential. let my land and I want to plat it in the number of lots that I can sed on the ordinance and your subdivision regulations and that's an ~trative approval. They come in with a plat. They meet your trds. They get the approval. Ellso~: But that's what we're concerned about. If you get more of that thanLhe kind we'd like to see. Emmin~s: What if we jack up our minimum standards? 3chh ~hardlow: Well there's something to that. I think you have to look at al~ of that but I think more importantly than that, making the planned unit ~evelopment a win win and obviously that's a whole discussion that has to go the c that of tol then that exper For t putti they I've and i Emmi n John Conra thoug basic, on and it's your responsibility to articulate what your vision is for )mmunity. What do you want to be and what are the elements of being ind of community. Whether that's preservation of trees, preservation ography, provision of innovative housing types. Whatever that is and ,Ob have to articulate that in your plan tools. You have to represent the information that the staff tells the people because my ence with developers is for the most part they don't want to fight. most part they'd much rather spend the time, energy, and money together a package that's going to be acceptable to the extent that )bviously have a product that they want to market as well. But people :ound will go a long ways if they just know what it's going to take they know what the standards are to a certain extent. s: They need some clear signals? ,hardlow: Exactly. : So John, I guess I misinterpretted you in the beginning. I t you said that you should go in and zone certain things PUD but Llly that's not true? Plant March Erhar Conra John ought anywh' devel desig Conra John Conra John Conra envir, certa but b. much those a nd going a SUbl John the b thing, Conral John In ev years devel, mean Conra and s, approl 3ohnl compr~ devel~ Conrai ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 34 : NO. : There are certain areas that should be but you're saying we can't. hardlow: What I'm saying is, the tool. The planned unit development to be a floating zoning district that is available to be applied for ~re in the city. $o I understand that you should zone planned unit >pment but you shouldn't go out on your official zoning map and pre- late sites planned unit development. : Because you can't? hardlow: Because you can't in my'opinion. : And your opinion. hardlow: That's based upon long conversations with. : Yeah, but there would be certain parcels and if we're nmentally sensitive, there are going to be certain treed areas, n sloped areas, certain large parcels that should be developed PUD .sically you're saying we can't do anything about it. It's pretty Lp to the developer to come in and talk to us. We can't forecast areas and say we really think that these areas need a different touch would like them to come in PUD? Basically you're saying that's to be a negotiation stage and really, if a developer comes in and has livision, we may have even gone along with it. ;hardlow: Certainly you have to look at your design standards across ~ard and are you preserving and protecting trees and those sorts of : But we can be aggressive. What I'm saying John, we could be sire and you're telling me we can't. hardlow: I'm telling you can be aggressive in terms of encouraging. ry comprehensive plan that I've ever worked on over the last 5 or 6 . we've had very clear in terms of encouraging planned unit ,pment and encouraging flexibilities in planned unit developments. ,our policy documents can be very clear about encouraging what the. : But agressive in my way of thinking would be we look at the areas y these are the areas that we think really a PUD is really ,riate. The whole TH 5 corridor for commercial. hardlow: There's no...in saying that. Designating it in your hensive plan as an area that you think should be a planned pment district but that's different than from going out and saying. : And zoning it. John hardlow: We zone it planned unit development. Plann March Conra~ John Emmi n subdi, PUD a: that o1: st Kraus,, bring every here. Emmi nl subdi, going ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 35 : So it could be in the comprehensive plan, not in the zone. hardlow: In that particular area. s: Is it alright to think about this in terms of here we have our ision ordinance and our standards and you can either do this or the an alternative to any of our subdivision regulations or standards e set where you can come in and basically negotiate a different set ndards. A different set of rules. : That gets to the heart of one of the issues that I've been ng up is that our current way of looking at PUD's throws out .hing and gives no guidance at all. I'm looking for a middle ground is: He made it clear to me and I thought it was a good point that the 'ision rules, the standards that are over here are baseline and we're to work our way up from there in our negotiations but what we might want ~,o do to encourage a PUD, it would seem to me is to lay down some stand~.rds regarding things that are very important to us that will be hard to me negot wrong Kraus: the e requi' lands tight shalt of do tidyi conti PUD c we'rE very sophi OUr e of al would amine conce mote Ahren or st if SOl high have subdi John have ~t under the subdivision ordinance to encourage them to come in and ate under a PUD. Is that getting grabby? Is that displaying the attitude? I don't know. : To the extent that you're achieving appropriate goals ! mean to tent that we are protecting mature stands of trees or we~lands or lng buffers or adequate setbacks and adequate parking and adequate :aping and everything else, it's perfectly legitimate to have a very ordinance that if you go straight zoning it says exactly what thou do. And if that becomes a problem or if there are more creative ways ng it, our alternative is to go PUD. We've spent the last 2 years ~g up all sorts of sections of the straight zoning ordinance and we'll )us to do that. I think the ground work is set for us to be using the lite a bit more. My statements to you last meeting too were that when looking at what's going to come down the pike on TH 5, we've got some .arge tracts of ground, several of which are owned by some very )ticated developers or would be marketed to those people and I think cpectations for it are somewhat similar. Terry doesn't do PUD's out ;ruism. He might feel better doing a quality development than he otherwise but it meets a market. Terry finds those lots to be )tly more marketable than cornfiel~ development. It works for all ned. $o there's lots of angles to play with these things and the =ophisticated developers understand that. : Why can't our subdivision regulations or ordinances be good enough ong enough and have high enough standards so that it doesn't matter ~ebody comes in with a PUD or a standard subdivision, we get the same uality result? Why does it always have to be, you know either you high quality with a PUD or you have to fall back onto the ision. ;hardlow: Subdivision regulations focus on what size do the parcels ;o be in order to be developed and then zoning regulations focus on Plann ng Commission Meeting March. 20, 1991 - Page 36 what i:tandards have to be met on that lot. Planned unit developments look at th, whole parcel and develops and plans for what's best for the whole parcel irrespective of lot size. I mean obviously you still have setback consi, erations between buildings and so forth but you start with a compl,,tely different framework. Ahrenl : But the results would be the same with the same high quality? 3ohn hardlow: Well, I'd argue. If you have a large area that is parceled off i strange configurations with different topography and different trees and y u put minimum standards that are rectalinear. Rectangular. And diffe ent owners and it's going to develop over time. Be marketed to diffe ent people. It could still be an attractive building. It could still an attractive building. It could still save some trees. I'm just telli ,g you, it's not going to be as attractive as if it was planned as a whole Ahren~ : But not all subdivisions have to have rectalinear lots. Kraus~: No, but a good example of what 3ohn is saying is the Chanhassen Busin~ ss Park which is not a bad straight zoning type of industrial park. But h~d that been laid-out, and we still have the odd lot. Every lot is sold ,ff. It's sold off to an individual. Opus originally developed a bunch of them but then they're just placed on the market. Anybody that comes down the pike who meets the site plan review standards gets to put up a bui..ding. And again, it's not a bad project but I think had we had an overa..1 development scheme, had we had an overall lighting and archil.ectural theme, had we had a better handle on being able to preserve areas of open space. I mean we are reduced to arguing over whether or not a giw,n oak tree should be preserved and it's sitting smack in the middle of th~ remaining lot where that's the only place to build the building. I mean our hands are tied at that point. You don't have the ability to make any c'eative judgment. The die is cast. Ahrenl : But even if you had the ability to make a creative judgment, if the di veloper in a PUD said I don't want to do that. That's not the way I want .o develop it, even though there's supposed to be give and .take in negot.ation between a city and developer. And I'm not saying they get to the p, iht where they're in an adversarial relationship but there's not the give ; nd take that there should be and the developer says, I want to do it this tay in my PUD. They still get their own way right? 3chh ! 'dlow: No. If it's inconsistent with the development plan, you can't do it that way because you represented to us that you were going to save hat tree and these other trees because that was the basis for giving you a increased intensification of development on this site. So the point is th~ t it is planned as whole and that significant tree that Paul was calli'~g out for, was shown in the Exhibits that identified the inventory analyl is and the constraints and so forth initially. Ahren, : It's developed as a whole in the beginning but the developers can come .ack in at anytime and say. Plann March 3ohn the k, Ahren no? build famil to st 3ohn give Ellso Emmi n Ahren maybe Ellso Ahren Ellso owner Emm i n Terry Batzl Terry want I 'ye could subdi that more same subdi becau been We ' re city. tOW n , don' t appro stand to si into the P certa lng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 37 ;hardlow: But it's subject to rezoning and you can say no. That's difference. : Yeah but is it...over a barrel at that point? I mean can they say f a developer comes in and says I don't want to build apartment ngs. I don't want to build townhouses. I want to build single homes because that's what the market has now. The City's not going p back and say no. ;hardlow: You can say yes but that doesn't mean that you're going to :hem the authority to cut that tree down. You see the difference? : You still have some give or take yes but now let's look at what. s: You can impose conditions on the rezoning I suppose. : ! get the impression that the push is to have everything PUD and that's good. I don't know. : I think so. : I don't know. : But I don't see that we have a whole lot of groups of property that are big enough either. s: It could just be a lot. Terry? Forbord: My name is Terry Forbord. I think that. : Force of habit. Forbord: I'm just used to doing it because of the record. I always :o get everything on the record. Personally there's situations that )een in where I would have just as soon not done a PUD. I mean I go in and accomplish. We do certain things, our firm does in every ision no matter what. We have, like I say our formula and if I find t's easier for me and less hassle and less meetings, because it's >f a process with the PUD process, that I can accomplish the exact hing going through a standard subdivision, then I'll go the standard ision and I'll still put in all the neat things that we do anyway e we found that that's the formula that works for us. And I have n a position where I have gone to a city and I've said here's what. proposing to do. That particular city was the adversarial type of They pounded their chests and said, well when you come into our we exact a pound of flesh from everybody who comes in here and if you do this, blah, blah, blah, then you're not going to get a PUD ;al. Then I said, well fine. I won't do a PUD. I'll just do a rd subdivision. It doesn't make any difference to me. I don't want and argue and have you be unreasonable with me so I mean it gets situation where the objective may be able to be met without using D. 8ut the PUD tool can be a benefit to both parties. Easily. You nly, if I was a Planning Commissioner. I no longer am but when I was Plann March a pla say. the c, have that autho 3ohn you c where crite' And h. Those you t perle' consi~ build and s, the al f r ama corri, compr. those of tr. wetla yOU ' V, you c, ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 38 ining commissioner, I wanted them to do a PUD because then I had some I had some legislative say over what was going to be done because in )mmunity, in Shakopee where I was a planning commissioner, we didn't he benefit of having a lot of first class developers. We had guys ,anted to come in and rape and pillage so that gave us a little ity where we were able to do, have some control. .hardlow: I think you always have to be, continuously looking at how n improve your standards. And I work with communities all the time how can we tighten up our signage standards? How do we require sign ia for the whole development? How can we improve tree preservation? ,w can we get better building materials in our commercial district? sorts of things. You need to keep elevating the base but I submit to ~at you're always going to be in a situation where you can set a mance oriented standard like high quality building materials of :tent quality and someone can put a white brick building on this ng and a gray brick building here and a striped brick building here forth and I'm saying to you, if it's designed as a whole, you've got ility through planned unit development to have an enhanced design Jerk where you can have a comprehensive landscape plan for the whole JoT. A comprehensive lighting plan for the whole corridor. A ~hensive signage scheme for the whole corridor. And if you develop parcels as parcels, you're never going to be able to do as good a job De preservation or as good a job of developing and preserving ids. You're just not because design, if you look at land design, always got, the more land you've got to work with, the better job n do. Erhar$: I've got 3 things. One is, the sense that I've heard here, when we ta~k about PUP's is that somehow there's a feeling that we've giving, when ,ou get a PUD somehow the City is negotiating a way, increase density for s.)mething in return. Yet the ones that I've looked at and what I'm hearilg tonight, it comes out. You've got 100 acres and you want to put 200 1.)ts in. I've not heard anybody say we're looking for increased densi;y. It appears to me what you're looking for is a different way to do those 200 lots. I mean have we ever in a PUD here, residential PUD, have we ac;ually increased the density versus what the ordinance would require for a standard subdivision in that area? Kraus Erhar Kraus ~2,50 Erhar Kraus there : Yes. : We do do that? : You did do that here. The way you changed the ordinance to have a square foot average minimum now sort of minimizes that. : I'm talking about the overall density. Yeah, you look at Pheasant Hills or someplace like that. Sure, more homes in there than there could be in a straight zoning. Erharm: I guess I'm getting the impression that that's not one of the itemslthat you're looking for. You're looking at a different way to do the Plann March 200 1, John densi might devel, Erbar' the s the o think Conra you. that of ar. famil typic put m produ, we're basic sells confu Terry and u every know don't per a that certa a lot give encou profe to lo one's way t 3chh ' trane for t areas housi perso There i ncre "Open lot o ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 39 .ts . ihardlow: It might or might not be. In some instances, increased w might be what the developer needs to do. In other situations it just be the flexibility to do some shared wall or common wall ~ment and others it might. : Well when you get into increased density then you're really into tuation where you're doing negotiating and trading yet I think more )portunities are in the way of how you do the 200 lots. I guess I you should focus on that. : It's a real interesting thing and Terry maybe it's a good one for How do you maintain your quality standard yet preserve the things ,ou're going after? And let's say it's open space just for the sake lument. Typically if you say, well instead of 100 acres of single residential, we want 70 acres of that and 30 acres open space and lly the developer will come back and say well I'm going to have tO units on smaller lots and typically they come in with a worse t. They're going to come in with a cheaper product or whatever so moving from, in many cases, we're moving from a single family to lly a multi-family complex. And we don't even know if that product You found that product doesn't sell so that whole area gets real lng to me. Forbord: You know when we talk and we use these buzz words. Density ~its per acre and downsizing and open space. I mean I hear open space Jhere I go to the point where, well what is open space? I don't even f I know what that means and I've been doing this all my life. I know what open space is. I've been in projects that were 20 units :re that felt like more open space than the Near Mountain subdivision Je'ue done just because of the way it was done and the creativity and Ln elements and things or a water element or a view corridor so I mean of it really comes down to creativity and I'm not going to be able to ,oua rock hard answer on that because the density thing I would 'age people to not get too hung up on that because I know, even as a ~sional I could go through 10 projects and I probably wouldn't be able k at you and accurately say well this one is 2 unit per acre and this 5 because they feel, if they were done right, they'd feel in such a 1at you probably wouldn't feel the impact of the density. And I know worked on projects that are like that so I think the density er issue that you were talking about is important because I think, ~e City to have a PUD ordinance where they're going to be in sensitive or in areas where we're trying to provide alternative type product or lg or whatever, there's going to need to be some mechanism, this is my ~al feeling and 3chh is certainly more eloquent about this than I am. s going to be a need to be able to transfer density somehow and ~se densities in certain areas but sometimes you can take 2 acres of space" and it can feel like it's 10 acres. $o the density thing, a it just depends on who the people are and how they're doing it. Erhar : Okay, I've got... Plann March John comes plans' devel~ their the wi develi densi~ so mu, stand and y Eagan expan~ statel of th~ on th~ manag, hours Throu~ City which had d, the o prope flexil you i going Conrai and meet Kraus ConTal Krausl it's someb Well, made argui outlo' YOU ' r, to te where screa those a der; Plann conta we ha know ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 40 hardlow: I've got a real burning response to that. If somebody in and does a single family residential plat, do you review building You can in a PUD. If someone's coming in to do a p~anned unit pment and they want to do an increase in density, you can look at building plans. Part of the negotiation can be what's the nature of ~odwork and you can get into that kind of thing in a planned unit ~pment and you can say no. I guess that's the key point. And maybe .y transfer doesn't work on a PUD project but I guess before you focus h on what you're giving up, I'd ask you to look at it from the oint of what you're getting. What you have got in terms of a tool lu don't have to use it. You know you don't have to use it but in we did a planned unit development when Northwest Airlines wanted to because they needed to do a full blown environmental impact ent. They needed to build a new interchange on the freeway and one only way they were going to be able to get the amount of development land that they wanted to was to be able to do traffic demand ment. That's where everyone staggers their work force at different and so forth. How in the world is the City going to enforce that? h a planned unit development is how they're going to enforce it. The f 8urnsville we had a very difficult area but multiple ownership some people had narrow ownership, long rectangular parcels and some lep parcels with no frontage. The planned unit development gave them ~portunity to maximize their development and potential of their ty by working together with those lot lines. It's an extremely .le tool and I guess look at it from that standpoint of what it gives terms of the ability to achieve your goals as opposed to what we're to be giving up. : But it's all developer initiated 3ohn. The developer's coming in en they apply, when they want the PUD it's because they don't want to )ur standards. : No, that's not true. : They don't want to meet a particular density or whatever. : Well, I'll grant you this though Ladd. Our experience with how een used in downtown Chanhassen falls into that spector. That )dy couldn't meet the hard surface coverage so do it like a PUD. we changed a lot of thinking about PUD's with the Market Square. We .hem buy into a development-contract. I think you might recall them ~g that we didn't have the right to tell them what could go on the ;s in that project and I said that's garbage. We do have the right. signing a contract. Developers understand contracts. We're going 1 you architecturally what can go on that. We're going to tell you you can access and where you're going to park and they kicked and led about that but the Council ultimately approved it that way and are the kinds of advantages that come out of this; Also, in terms of ~loper dictating things, I guess we try to be as open with the ng Commission as we can but it's hard to relate to you the number of :ts and meetings we have with people before they ever show up here and ,e a great deal of latitude in pushing them one way or the other. You lost developers don't come here trying to bump heads. They come here Plann March tryin down highw Get a, conce out a Conra' You'r, Basic you n saved had, becom Ellen KYaus need sorts yOU'T come becau lousy That' confr Conra don't Kraus ConTa Ahren good Conra don't persp The d here playg any d becau John obvio staff polic the s can a and w ;rig Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 41 to come up with something that's mutually acceptable. When they sit ith us and we say that's a sensitive piece of ground. It's on a corridor and we really want to treat this as an overall project. much land locked up as you can and come up with an overall design t, more than half the time they'll do it because we basically laid it a reasonable premise. : Then that leads me into another question. Same thing Paul. doing the negotiation. Planning Commission doesn't have a clue. lly you're negotiating and we sit here and we say we don't know if ~gotiated a good deal or a bad deal. We don't know what the developer What the utilities and all the special, all the things that they .hat they benefitted from versus what they negotiated so the question ~s, what's the role of the Planning Commission? : We set the goals for them. : Yeah. I think that's very true Annette that there are goals that o be set. Possibly we do need to do a better job of conveying the of trade-offs that are in there but Ladd look at the inverse of what saying. A lot of developers take the mind set that I'm going to o the. city with 8, you know I'm going to over the units by 30~ De I know the City's going to dump all over me. I'll come up with a landscaping scheme so I can buy, you some give them something back. the flip side to your argument and what we try to do is avoid that ntational aspect altogether if we can and work that out hopefully. : But how does the Planning Commission get involved in this? We know what's being negotiated. : But you see the end product. : We see the end product so therefore we see it. : We don't know what the options are'. And the end result is only as s the planning staff. : I've gone through a lot of them Paul and I'm just telling you, I have a clue whether it was a good deal or a bad deal. I never had a )ctive of what should have been done to that property. Not an idea. )veloper knew what they wanted to do. I didn't and so I'm sitting ~aying, well gee. Do I want another 15 square feet for that · ound and was the 5 yard, did the 5 foot change in the setback make ifference? And I don't know. And I say why am I looking at this :e I don't have a clue. hardlow: Well the process that I outlined in my slides called for, sly people are going to, you don't want people to come to see the and if nothing else to find out what the procedures are and get the documents and so forth but one of the key aspect of that process was etch plan. When they come to you and convey the basic idea and you k them those hard questions. You can ask them what's in it for you at are the savings and you can talk about those sorts of things and Plann MaTch yOU befor~ real know infor mean detai that that Ellso plan. Conra~ OUT Oi motiv~ squat, know that. stand~ appro~ How d~ John night perfo' way o' flexil to be do th~ this conte your picke is so have much incor Erhar you John land at wh Erhar' I lis' devel, come We lo, open you s ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 42 n get very detailed. Very detailed at the concept stage approval you recommend approval of the zoning. So there you've got a very ole. You've got the opportunity to ask all the tough questions and 11 of the information that you want to know short of proprietory ation about what's in it for them and what's in it for you. So I ~gain, I haven't reviewed the ordinance that Paul's put together in but every planned unit development that I've worked with has got ketch plan approval and it's got that concept stage approval and exactly the kind of role you play in the process. : ...when people do that we usually say, I can't decide without a That's usually what we end up coming back with. : John, you mentioned performance standards and we have a couple in d ordinance and we had some, we don't know if our old ordinance ~ted anybody to do anything. Have you like, you can go down to 12,000 foot lot sizes and that's another issue. You know we just don't f it's doing anything because people aren't coming in and demanding We just haven't seen a lot of requests for that but performance lrds in general. Should we, that's one way of having a formulated ich to this but do you recommend that we have performance standards? we find them? How do we make them fair? hardlow: Well again, that's almost a subject for a whole other s discussion and I've got two other carousels of slides to talk about 'mance standards but to me, performance standards again are another achieving your goals while providing the development community with ility. Because you're saying what we want is for rooftop utilities totally screened from off site view and we strongly encourage you to ~t with an extension of the parapet wall. I mean what it's saying is .s the objective. Meet it anyway that it makes sense in the total :t of your project. So from that standpoint, you're accomplishing ~bjective and you're not saying all screening shall be done with wood · fences. No more than you know you're not creating a standard that rigid as to deny a fle;ibility on how it's achieved. So should you ~erformance standards? As a designer and as a planner, I think it's a letter way to go than any rigidly construed set of how to's that gets ~orated into a zoning ordinance. : John, what did you mean when you said Eden Prairie doesn't give ning until they see the whites of your eyes? hardlow: In the City of Eden Prairie it is their practice to leave oned agricultural until they review a specific development proposal ,ch time they will zone in accordance with their comprehensive plan. : Okay. And I'll tell you, I sat there and listened to that whole. ened to your whole presentation and I'll go back specifically to the ~pment that we had for these high density apartments up here and they n. You've got your ordinance that allows what, R-12 or something. k at it and we all say it's crappy. It's too dense and not enough pace and I look at that and I go, why do we zone it R-127 Why don't ~art out with either something lower or just go single family Plann March resid and s~ Krausl unfor, devel~ I'm playe~ ordinl very Erhar R-127 Kraus~ place someb~ PUD. piece YOU ' Vi that to ge that there Erhar' ought ourse zonini get si John all b still zoned that stand Emmi n, Conral back produ that, diffe Ellso. them you s Just Erhar lot o no Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 43 ntial and then go back and encourage somebody to come in with a PUD y yeah, really deep down we do want some apartments up there. : That shows one of the other advantages of a PUD. I mean unately that was a pre-zoned piece of property where you had a ~per who said, I'm going to cram as many units as I can in there and lng to do the absolute minimum your ordinance requires. But we that game with him. Every time he quoted something out of the nce, we quoted something else that was in there and it got to be a ncomfortable contensious situation. : My question is, why do we have anything in the zoning map that's : First of all, had we never pre-zoned that thing in the first One of the things I like about a PUD is if you came along, say dy did have a project you found acceptable. You approved it as a For whatever reason the project never goes. You're not left with a of R-12 zoning sitting around waiting for something bad to happen. got a piece of property with the only thing that's approved on it is roject that you liked and anybody that wants to do anything else has a completely new zoning which gets back to the additional authority Chh touched on. It's one of the enhancements to the PUD that it's and it's added protection for the city and for the residents. : I guess what I'm saying, in conjunction with this PUD I think we to look at some of these zoning areas and say hey, let's give yes a little control on this and let's back off on some of this and at the same time encourage to come in and make a PUD so we can .me control over it. ;hardlow: Yeah. Please don't hear me saying that PUD's is the cure ~cause it isn't. You still have to look at all your standards and you have to scrutinize all of the land in your community to find if it's and guided the right way. There's no question you still have to do, Jut maybe if you ended up with a schlocky multiple project, your rds in the multiple family district aren't strong enough. ~s: Right. : I don't know, I like PUD's but you know I'd rather have, it gets o if you bring in the right developer, you're going to have a better :t and if you get a bad developer you're not going to and I'm not sure ,ur PUD ordinance is going to make a big difference. As big a ence as having the right developer come into town. : Yeah, but if you have a bad developer, you have more control over ith a PUD. That's why I'd try to go out and get more PUD's but like rid, we can't zone it that way. How can we aggressively encourage it? )tate it everywhere? : You're right. You can increase performance standards but it's a work. It appears to me it's a lot easier to down zone your areas PIann March that Ellso Erhar Ellso one? John of yo devel I mea repret to de, approl think chall Emm i n John compr KTaus makes to do Erhar' high Kraus other advan~ start Erhar Krausl contiI Erhar' make~ 3ohn~ Burns~ go up you acre idea 12 an that cauti .rig Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 44 'ou'd like to have PUD's. : Then what? : Then force the developer to come in. : But how do you tell a developer you're thinking of changing that hardlow: You're entering into a whole different discussion in terms .r philosophy and your attitude and your relationship with the ,pment community. That's something you have to work out for yourself. the role that you play and the way in which your community ents itself to the development community is something that you have :ide philosophically. Obviously Eden Prairie feels that that way of ~ching it is better. If push came to shove in my honest opinion, I it's illegal what Eden Prairie does but they've never been ,nged. Is: It's like spot zoning. ihardlow: Well they're refusing to zone in accordance with their ,hensive plan. : Which we do here. I also told them that it's a little iffy but it sense to do and until we're challenged on it, that's what we intend .: I know but there's nobody forcing them to zone a specific spot lensity. Multiple housing high density. : No, and we don't have an intention of pre-zoning any more property than the new MUSA land. You know the new MUSA is sort of .ageous in a lot of ways. It's raw land. It's all zoned ag. We're .ng with a clean slate out there. It gets a lot tougher when you're. : We're not looking at any new high density? : We've got some new areas that are guided high density but they ue to be zoned ag. : Well what I would suggest, when we get to the zoning map is we verything RSF. hardlow: We've done exactly what you've said in the city of ille where in the multi-family residential district you're allowed to to something like 12 units per acre and then over and above that, if the planned unit development route, you can get up to 26 units per you do underground parking and other things like that. So that saying you have a right based upon the underlying zoning to go to you go beyond that but the only way we're going to allow you to do to go through planned unit development. But again I'm going to you that your standards still need to be reasonable and what you Plant Marc~ exact get a Conra John down Mount iots., side iot ¢ woodI the o more Batzl group John Batzl John lng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 45 out of the process still has to be reasonable because you can never ~ay from the ability or the responsibility of being held to that. d: So what encourages a developer to ask for a PUD? 5hardlow: In which circumstance? I mean really, you keep pinning me ~nd it really depends on the specific project. In the event of Near ~in, they needed, they wanted the flexibility to develop some smaller Some lots closer to the lake. Some more flexibility in terms of ,ard setback. In the case of the development along TH $, there's a constraints out there. There's a lot of wetlands. There's a lot of .nde. There's a lot of topography to be dealt with. It could provide >portunity to be more efficient in the development while still saving tees and being able to preserve those features. : But how do you encourage that along TH 5 if there's a multiple of property owners? ~hardlow: I could have swore we proposed it. : Excuse me? .hardlow: I said I could have swore we proposed it. ther how d patti proac do so John where plan. mid t Well yes, granted but let's say but now that you've proposed it nothing that says the people are actually going to do that. I mean we encourage that in other areas? You proposed it in that ular area but I mean is there something that we as a city can .ively do to go out and get property owners in corridors together to ~ething like that? hardlow: The City of Burnsville did a Highway 13 corridor study they got ail of the landowners to participate in the process and They had a task force and they did some short term goals and some )tm goals and some long term goals and adopted some goals and objectives for the corridor and established some specific policies. Things they~ere going to try and accomplish over time and one of the things that kept ;oming back into that was encouraging the development of the corridor throu h the planned unit development process. Again, you can do a lot to encou age. All I'm saying is you can't go out and say you're zoned planned unit ~evelopment and the only way you can develop your property is by comin in here and negotiating with us and we'll tell you what you can do with our land. And that's an attitude that's out there and as long as you'r~ aware of that, you can encourage it in your plan. In your comprehensive plan. You can do corridor studies. You can adopt policies in yo says allow citie plann condi those exist ir comprehensive plan. You can adopt standards in your ordinance that if you want to do beyond this level of intensity, the only way we'll that is through planned unit development. There are some uses in some where I consult which can only be approved in the city through the d unit development. It doesn't exist as a permitted use or .ional use in any zoning district in the zoning community. One of that comes to mind is a marina. In the City of Roseville they had an ng marina and they wanted to allow it to expand. It didn't show up Plann March as a to ma any o' devel, tool. Ellso' Emmin Conra Emmint talk. and t~ Erhar Emmin there Can w~ Kraus= Emminl motio' Farma, and ti Submi~ Plann, Prepa' ng Commission Meeting 20, 1991 - Page 46 :onditional or permitted use in any zoning district. They didn't want :e it a conditional use in the R-i district because they didn't want ,her marinas in the community. So we developed a planned unit ,pment so that it allowed you that flexibility. Extremely flexible : We could have put in the testing station that way. s: The chairman has an announcement he'd like to make. I'm leaving. : The meeting is closed. s: No, I'll just turn it over to Tim if you guys want to stay and This is really interesting. I want to thank both of you for coming .lking to us. : Why don't you close the meeting and we can keep going. s: Okay. As far as, we've got a couple of agenda items that, s a landscaping issue paper and a pending wetland legislation update. push those over? : Oh yeah, no problem. s: Okay. $o then that concludes what's on our agenda. Is there a to close the meeting? .es moved, Conrad seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor le motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 11:15 p.m.. ,ted by Paul Krauss . .rig Director 'ed by Nann Opheim