1991 07 17CHANHi
REGULi
JULY
PLANNING COMMISSION
MEETING
7, 1991
Chair an Emmings called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m..
MEMBE : Tim Erhart, Steve Emmings, Brian Batzli and Jeff Farmakes
MEMgEI ASSENT: Ladd Conrad, Annette Eiison and Joan Ahrens
PRESENT: Paul Krauss, Planning Director; Jo Ann Olsen, Senior
Plann, ; Kathy Aanenson, Planner II and Charles Folch, Asst. City Engineer
PU
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Jo An
publi
Batzl
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Emmin
Farma :es:
Emmin is:
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supe'
ING
PERMIT TO PERMXT ;[N~.TA~AT~[O~. AND CONSTRUCTION O~ A
~DECK NATURE WALK" ACROSS THE WETL~ND TO CONNECT THE TWO HIGH AREAS IN
PARK LOCATED SOUTH OF ,ANE AND
CHANHASSEN.
Olsen presented the staff report. Chairman Emmings called the
hearing to order.
moved, Erhart seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in
and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed.
Jeff, do you have any comments on this?
I have no comments on this.
Alright. Brian?
Jo Ann, can you point again exactly where they're going to be
the deck.
It's going to be on the east side...through the wetlands here...
Just from a philosophical standpoint, will we be encouraging more
through the wetland? I mean obviously your intent is to keep
on the superdeck but will there be more trash? People jumping off
sck? Whatever into the wetland areas.
: Where they have these elsewhere in Carver Beach and the Arboretum,
hasn't been, except with the Hennepin County Park Preserve that has
and they haven't stated that was a problem. That they've been really
vor of these because of all the people that really get in and see the
ation. If anything appreciate wetlands more. As far as staff. No,
n't have a concern about that.
i: I guess I tend to think of the Arboretum, for example there's very
ids that go in there but we're going to have here a playground type
that I think it will be frequented more by kids without adult
vision. My only concern is that we get a bunch of kids throwing stuff
Plann
July
into
encou
like
appre
don't
about
Olsen
the P~
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 2
he wetland and tooling around in the wetland. We might be
aging it a little bit is my only concern. I think you're right. I'd
o see us have more access to the wetland. Have people be able to
iate it and go through there but I think that's a concern that I
know if it's been addressed or if it's something we need to talk
or even consider.
What we could maybe do is to, I could bring that concern back to
rk and Rec Commission and maybe, again if there's anything going to
be happening next year that they can look at what, signage or maybe even
have )ike something so the kids can't climb from the boardwalk into the
wetlatd.
Batzl
it.
not s,
Olsen
8atzl
there
you d,
Emmim
Erhar
the d
says
Olsen
reall
Erhar
Olsen
horde
Ziegl
: No matter what you build, they're going to be able to climb over
f it's a sign, it will probably encourage it. They'll say oh we're
pposed to do it. Great, let's do it.
I guess I don't know what you could do to prevent that.
: I don't know. My only concern is by putting the deck through
that you'll be encouraging traffic through the wetland in ways that
,n't anticipate right now. Otherwise I'm in favor of it.
Is: Tim?
: I think the concept's just fine. What's Andy's Acres up there on
awing? My drawing says Andy's Acres. Where you said Outlot B, mine
,ndy's Acres. What is that?
That's the Ziegler property and that's like Andy's Acres is a
old subdivision.
: Okay, so now it's just part of the park?
No, that's not part of the park. The park is right here. It
s it. That's the Ziegler property. It's the daughter of Delores
Erhar~: Okay. Then to the west of that it says Minnewashta Park so what
have~e got? One lot that kind of sticks in the whole area then.
Kraus~: There's actually two subdivisions north of the park. One being
Minne~ashta Park and the other being Andy's Acres.
Emmi n
Kraus
next
Erhar
locat
right
~s: It says it over here too.
: Well it's confusing but that Minnewashta Park is the name of the
3ubdivision.
· : Oh I see. Down on the lower right hand corner you see approximate
[on of trail alternate 1. What is that all about? The arrow points
into the wetland. Is that just the arrow's not complete?
,, - I ' .... i
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 3
Olsen They've got it set up into the different stages and different
phase~ . The only trail that'will be going into the wetland is that
su k trail.
: Why do you call it a superdeck?
Olsen I think that that's just the terminology that they used.
Erhar : That's common terminology?
Olsen For the wood part.
Erhar : You show up here on the east side of the superdeck, okay so blue.
Befor it hits the dots but yet that's within the wetland limits. Is that
going to be fill? The east end of the superdeck it shows a blue line.
Kraus~: The jagged blue line?
Erhari : The straight blue line.
Olsen Yeah I don't know if that's just they extended their...
Erhar : The west.
Olsen Right I see that. The superdeck would all be the boardwalk. We
wouldl 't allow any filling.
Erbar' : Okay, so the superdeck goes all the way back.
Olsen To the edge.
Erhar' : To the edge of the wetland. What's the superdeck going to be
const zed of?
Olsen It's wood.
Erhar : Treated?
Olse The details on that, I believe that.
Erhar : I don't know. There's been a lot of adverse data coming out.
Olse Well it depends on what type you use. Yeah, we looked into that
with he boardwalks in Crimson Bay and some say yes. Treated wood is bad.
Some ;ay treated wood is, actually I don't know exactly what. If they even
know
Er : I guess I would just suggest that maybe you do a little bit of
r ch. I don't mean specifically.
When they put out for bid for it?
: Although I don't know. I supposed there's a lot of docks.
s just been a lot of data coming out lately about treated wood.
Plannt
July
Emmin
Erhar
Emmi n
about
heard
Erbar
thing
Emm i n!
reaso'
else
Erhar
Alter~
wetla
condi'
Emmin
Erhar'
Emmim
Batzl
peopl
how t
Erhar~
appro~
200 f~
trail
the fi
1. T
2. TI
bi
V(
3. TI
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 4
s: Dave Headla brought that up a long time ago. Were you here?
: Yeah, I remember that and ever since that time.
s: My recollection is that we talked to somebody from the State
that and they said they didn't think it was a concern. I haven't
anything about it since that time.
: Okay. Well there might be instances. I think that's the only
I had on it. Like I say, it looks like fun.
s: I don't have any additional comments. I think it looks like a
able proposal. Unless anybody's got any, does anybody have anything
hey want to say on this? Is there a motion?
: I move that the Planning Commission recommend approval of Wetland
tion Permit #91-2 to allow construction within 200 feet of a Class A
d and the installation of a superdeck per staff's proposal and
ions arfd the plan shown dated, what's the date on this?
,s: June 13th.
: 13th. Okay.
s: I'll second it. Is there any discussion?
: I would just like the City to consider the issue of encouraging
into the wetlands. I would encourage them to move slowly and see
is one works out before they plan a lot more of these.
· moved, Emmings seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
~al of Wetland Alteration Permit #91-2 to allow construction within
,et of a Class A wetland and the installation of a superdeck nature
through a Class A wetland as shown on plans dated June 13, 1991 with
~llowing conditions: ,
'pe III erosion control will be placed between all construction areas
id wetland limits.
,e super deck nature trail cannot be installed during waterfowl
'eeding season and shall be located as to minimize the impact on
,getation.
~ere shall be no filling or dredging permitted within the Class A
,tlands.
All v~ted in favor and the motion carried unanl~usl¥.
Plann
July
PUBLI~
WETLA!
ALSO
2.5
Pub 11 (
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Marge
Jo An
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Marge
Emmin~
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where
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Olsen
This
Marge
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Olsen
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Emm i n!
Erhar'
favor
Emmi n~
Erhar
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 5
HEARING:
D ALTERATION PERM)T FOR THE R~IGNMENT OF HWY 10~ {SOUTH LEG) AND
HE WEST 78TH STREET DETACHMENT ANP THE M~TIGATIO~ OF APPROXIMATELY
RES OF WETLAND, CITY OF CH~NHASSEN.
Present:
me Address
Shorba Hwy.
Olsen presented the staff report on this item. Chairman Emmings
the public hearing to order,
Shorba: I just have a question.
s: Would you please stand up and identify yourself.
Shorba: Ny name is Marge Shorba. We own property on Hwy lO1 south.
after you go over the bridge to the left. I'm just not quite sure
this is with our property. I guess what I want to make sure that it
enough east because the frontage road will now be running in front
property. The new highway running directly behind it. At one of
her meetings they had promised us that they would build a dirt sound
adjacent to our property for the noise of the new highway.
Those plans are still.
Shorba: Okay, I just wanted to make sure that this wouldn't be any, that there still would be room for that mound.
Oh yeah. Actually this is part of with that design of the street.
s not.
Shorba: Nothing else then?
I think it's pretty well south of you where the creek?
Shorba: Okay, we own property right after you cross the creek.
Oh okay, to the south? It shouldn't.
Shorba: We own two lots there.
s: Is there anyone else who has any questions or comments on this?
, moved, Batzli seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in
and the motion carried. The public hearing ~as closed.
s: Tim, have you got any comments on this proposal?
: No, I don't have any on this one.
Plann ng Commission Meeting
July 7, 1991 - Page 6
Emmin~s: Brian?
Batzl : Is an earth work permit going to be required to do this? Is that
going to be brought in separately? Are they going to have to move a lot of
dirt or this?
Olsen Yeah, they'd be getting into that.
yards
Batzl :
Kraus:
Batzl
Emm i n~
Farma
Emmin~
Batzl
Alter~
They'd be over 1,000 cubic
es:
We can't do that administratively?
: We can.
: Okay.
s: Jeff?
I have no further comments·
Public projects are exempted from that requirement.
Good. That's aIi I have.
s: I don't either· Is there a motion on this?
: I move the Planning Commission recommend approval of Wetland
tion Permit #91-3 shown on plans dated July 2, 1991 with the
condil ' ns set forth in the staff report·
Erhari : Second·
Batzl moved, Erhart seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
appro"al of Wetland Alteration Permit #91-3 as shown on plans dated July 2,
1991 nd with the following conditions:
i ·
·
·
.
5. N,
6. TI
All vl
1 e wetland mitigation area will be increased to 1.66 acres and be
d~signed to meet the six Fish and Wildlife criteria.
TIpe III erosion control shall be installed between the existing
w,ttland area and all disturbed areas.
A 1 disturbed areas shall be spread with topsoil/muck from the project
t, revegetate the area with existing vegetation.
N, alteration/construction shall be allowed during waterfowl breeding
direct storm water discharge into the wetland will be permitted·
e storm water pond shall be seeded with MnOot roadside mix for steep
opes (clover).
,ted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Plann
July
PUBLI
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Jo An
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Erharl
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cou 1 d
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 7
HEA~ING:
ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO DEFINE/CLARIFY BED AND BREAKFAST
ISHMENTS.
Olsen presented the staff report. Chairman Emmings called the
hearing to order.
moved, Farmakes seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in
and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed.
s: Does anybody got anything they want to talk about?
: Yeah. What in our ordinance says that this building's even going
e running water or insulation or heat?
Well for it to get an occupancy permit. You'd have to go through
ilding Department.
: It's all clear?
s: Isn't this also a conditional use?
Or interim use.
s: So if anybody's going to bring one of these in, we're going to be
o see it. It's not just a permitted use...so we'd be able to judge
like whether or not the accessory structure fit in in a way like the
at we looked at did. Was it compatible with the other building and
th.
: I missed that meeting. How were they going to put plumbing in
arage? Were they going to have a bathroom in the room?
You mean the one we just processed?
: Yeah.
Yeah, they were even adding a new septic site.
: Oh they were. See on this condition use permit, we have to
I mean we have to show a reason to deny a conditional use if it's a
~ed use. That's why I'm saying, if there's some other ordinance that
.les into this that requires it properly constructed for human
.tion.
The Building Code requires that.
.: Okay. If we're going to do this, I like the idea of making it
,r to accessory buildings because if you say garage then' it looks like
doing this for one particular individual. The other comment I had
your second page there. On owner occupied single family home which
re than 5 rooms and so forth and so far. Seven or less consecutive
~ith the same person. Let's say a couple rents this thing. They
alternate back and forth one week renting one and the next week
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 8
renti
chan
effect
a moni
Olsen
Batzl
Erhar'
down
would
Batzl{
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Farina
that
Emmin
them.
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Batzl
Erhar'
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Olsen
them
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tradi
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Erhar
Emmi n
Batzl
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we'd
to go
provi
Wbate
to the other person. Refer this to the attorneys here, If you
that to same person or persons, I don't know if that would have any
but it's possible with that language that somebody could rent it on
y basis, If anybody cares.
Person Or persons.
: I was kind of leaning towards I didn't know if anybody cared.
: The scenario that I could see happening is if the place gets run
nd it could very easily turn into a boarding house. Where somebody
tart using it as a more permanent residence. That does happen.
: I guess I still think of bed and breakfast in England 'where they
ermanent residence. I didn't know why it matters.
es: I stayed in some in California where you have a limit of 2 days
ou can stay there and it was a local ordinance.
s: And was it enforced in your experience? Did the people that run
es: It was in the literature and I asked about it. She just said it
local ordinance. I imagine for what you just talked about. There was
t. I didn't get into it any further than that but that's how they
led as a bed and breakfast.
: Why do we care?
: Because I don't think we want to turn it into a hotel. I thought
tent was.
This gives us enough that if it did become a problem we could bring
and say it's not meeting the interim use permit or conditional use
: I think the reason for it though is boarding houses have
ionally had the potential, if not the reality of causing neighborhood
,ms. There's a different element that lives in a boarding house. A
.ent as opposed to somebody who's looking to get away for the weekend
,heir wife or spouse or whatever.
: That's what I had.
s: Okay, Brian?
: I think that makes sense to make the change that we're talking
there. The interesting thing I thought the detached accessory
.ute, do you feel comfortable that since it's a conditional use that
lave enough leverage over it or do you want to put some sort of intent
along with when we would allow the accessory structure. Like
red that such detached accessory structure fits in with the character.
'er we want to put in there. Do you want to put something in there?
Planning Commission Meeting
July
Emm i n
Batzl
for t
7, 1991 - Page 9
s: Sure. That's a good idea.
: Otherwise I agree that we're looking like we're kind of doing this
at one...
Erhar : Should we even go farther than that? Say the existing structure
has t already exist.
Batzl : So they don't build another One?
Olsen We discussed that. That it has to be at least lO years old or 50
years old but then.
8atzl : What's the difference?
Olsen Yeah.
Farma es: That's when the walkway, just build a walkway out to it.
Olsen I think it's probably a good idea to do something like that. So
just .uilt to similar architectural? See that's what, we discussed it and
it wa really hard to pinpoint. I think we all know what Ne mean but it's
hard to explain.
Emminlls: Well i~ should be compatible with the other buildings on the
property. I don t know I suppose compatible is a Nord that's awfully broad
but.
Erhar : Something with the style and nature.
Kraus : We're comfortable with compatible. It's the City Attorney that
glincles a little bit but just simply because it gives us more latitude to
be ab. e a little inconsistent with it. But we've used that same term a lot
in th~ ordinance.
Emmin~ s: Okay, we'll do that.
Batzl : That's all I have.
Emmin s: Jeff.
Farma;es: Everything has been discussed up until this point. The one
thing that I had brought up right now is the issue that if, as I understood
it if they built a walkway out to that gatehouse, they would have conformed
to th~ existing structure. It would have made it attached right?
Olsen Right. Well it had to be a walkway with a roof.
Farma .es: Right but I believe that, a friend of mine just built a house
out i Alton and did not want a detached garage so be just built a walkway.
It's ust a little stick roof with sort of a dock type floor off to it. $o
it go around the ordinance in that way. I'm just wondering if somebody
wishe, to turn a barn into a rentable situation or something other than a
Planning Commission Meeting
3uly ~7, 1991 - Page 10
carriage house, to qualify for that do they just have to build a walkway to
do it~. If that's an existing structure.
Olsen Well with this you would be able to use that barn.
Farma] Ds: That's what's considered attached then right? You can just
build walkway.
Batzl~: But they do have a conditional use for, and I believe we limit the
numbe¥ of rooms.
Farma~ss: It was 5 wasn't it?
8atzlJ: They would have to come back in, yeah.
Emmin<. s: Yeah, once it's attached because they've already got the maximum
numbel of rooms in the main building. Just by attaching it they can't do
anyth ng because that won't get them anything extra. I supposed you've got
contr 1 that way. The other thing we could do I suppose, if this
situation, I don't know how often attached structure is used in our
ordinance but do we have any requirement in attached garages in anything?
I don t think so.
Kraus., : Actually we do have one style of housing that requires attached
gar age s.
Emmin.. s: We could simply define, we could define attached structure is one
that aares a common wall with the principle structure or something like
that a nd that would eliminate that problem.
Krauss: In fact that's something that we need a little clarification of.
We've had a couple of instances where if you have an accessory structure
you hz ve one side yard setback. Detached. If you're having attached, it's
a dirt ~rent standard and we've had some people try to play with that lack
of a ¢ finition to get the best deal on putting the building in the side
yard.
Emmin~ s: Okay, so if attached is sharing a wall in common with the
principle structure, would that eliminate these problems or not? It seems
like 17 would.
Kraus~: Well actually I'd like to be able to bounce it off the building
official because 8uilding Code and Zoning Ordinance tends to differ in
inten~ and the results we get on that particular issue. I think we need to
work ¢
Emminl
Erhar
Emmin
Olsen
ut something that works with both.
s: Okay why don't you, there's something we can head off maybe.
: Can these rooms be in the basement?
s: Theoretically but again it's got to meet Code.
And have the windows and egress.
Planni Commission Meeting
July 1 , 1991 - Page 11
Windows, that's all stated?
K
only
may
with
on
Realistically I don't know how much we're going to see of this. We
ve one in town now. There's a potential with the seminary that they
op the two homes as adjunct kind of accessory guest houses but
development that we've seen and then with the rural development up
bluff, there's just no place else for it to go.
Erhar Is something happening with the seminary?
Kr Well it's kind of an ongoing odyssey. We've been talking to the
same idividual for about a year now.
Er
But nobody's putting money into it yet?
Well they claim to be on the verge of submitting an application.
Farma ,s: I have no further comments.
Emmin~ : Okay. I agree that it should say structure rather than garage.
Other~ ~e everything I've got has already been discussed unless anybody
else nts to do anything further, is there a motion on this? Srian why
don't do it?
Batzl
Code
with
read
read,
the
word
exi
I move that the Planning Commission adopt amendments to the City
set forth in the recommendations of the July 10, 1991 staff report
following changes. In Section 1 where it says person. It would
son or persons. And at the end of Section 2, paragraph 4 it would
ovided that such detached accessory structure is compatible with
ng principle structure. Now I say that and I didn't include the
chitectural. I almost wanted to compatible architecturally with the
principle structure and compatible with the bed and breakfast type
ng like that.
Olsen But the one we just did wasn't, when I was drafting this too I
wrote chitecturally too but the one we Just did had barn siding versus
Chask. brick.
Batzl : I don't think we're looking architecturally. I think we're
looki more that it fits into the bed and breakfast concept. That's what
makes ~t tough to put into.
Emmin~ : I'll second your motion. Is there any discussion?
Batzl : I'd like 3o Ann to think about it a little bit more and if she
comes with something better before it gets to City Council, recommend
that.
Batzl moved, Emmings seconded that the Planning Commission recommend to
adopt the amendments to the City Code as follow, s:
ECTION 1. Section 20-1 of the Chanhassen City Code is amended by
amend g the definition of "bed and breakfast" to read:
Plann
July
ing Commission Meeting
17, 1991 - Page 12
Ar owner occupied single family home in which not more than five (5)
rc~ms are rented on a nightly basis for a period of seven (7) or less
consecutive days by the same person or persons. Meals may or may not
be provided to residents and overnight guests.
read:
b~
CTION 2- Section 20-252(4) of the Chanhassen City Code is amended to
(4) Not more than five (5) rooms may be rented. Ail rooms must
located in the principal dwelling except that one room may be
lc:ated in a detached accessory structure, provided that such detached
accessory structure is compatible with the existing principle
structure.
All vcted in favor and the motion carried.
APPRO% ~L OF MINUTES: The Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated
June 19, 1991 were so noted with one exception. Commissioner Batzli noted
that u 3der Members Present it looked as though he, along with Annette
Ellsor had arrived late. He wanted it clarified to show that only Annette
Ellsor had arrived late.
CITY (JUNCIL UPDATE.
Krauss There's actually a couple interesting things in there I think. One
minor )ne. The Roger Byrne plat, the one that we discussed here with
whether or not the driveway should be paved. We were directed to go, the
deternination was not to pave the driveway because the street wasn't but we
were ¢irected to go talk to the City Engineer. See if there's a way to
minim ze erosion problems. After the meeting we.did sit down with them and
they old us there really wasn't a good way of doing that. That paving the
thing ;s really the only way of dealing with it. So we went back to the
City C )uncil with the recommendation that the thing be paved but it not be
paved to the 20 foot width. That it be paved to a width that's consistent
with t 3e fact that there's a fire plug on one side and there were trees and
that ~ ~rage pad area on the other. Ultimately that was the way the Council
appro%
pavemE
Emmin(
Am I
Olsen:
hydrar
Emmin..~
one me
Counc
Kraus:
Emmin(
place
ed it so it will be a paved driveway. It's kind of a modified
nt. I believe the 8yrne's found that acceptable as a compromise.
s: I thought he had decided to put his road in a different place.
tong about that?
His driveway. Well it was going to be adjusted because of the fire
t.
s: No, but I thought he was actually going to, when I was here at
eting. At one City Council meeting it was, has he been at two City
1 meetings or one?
: Just the one.
s: Didn't he talk about actually putting his driveway in a different
altogether? Okay, I made it up.
Planning Commission Meeting
July 1 7, 1991 - Page 13
Batzli I thought somebody got a variance to build their driveway or
sometb ng too. Is that a different guy?
Olsen: It was going to be shared and so he was going to move his so they'd
be sep :rate because it wasn't going to work that they would be shared.
Emmin.< : Right. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. Okay. Thank you for
baili 3 me out. And why is that road not paved? The road itself. Not the
dr ive~
Kraus~ Chairman Emmings, you're dealing with a neighborhood where there
are nc good answers. The road doesn't go anywhere but it sort of does. It
actual .y is a thru road now if you wind back up the hill. I think
ultimately we're going to find that the surface water management plan, the
water quality element in terms of the list of things that it's going to
prioritize to do is going to tell us to do things like that for that reason
alone Over time I've got to believe all the roads in the city that aren't
paved and there's very few of them right now will be paved because
maint~ lance cost gets pretty excessive. But it's just one of those things.
There no good reason. Another action that was taken, the Kurvers Point
2nd A( dition, Final Plat was approved. We did meet with MnDot. There was
contirJing concern but it was concluded that they would go with, they'd be
allowed to go with a cul-de-sac. There was a concern or our concern was
how dc we upgrade that existing curb cut to make it safe. {de'ye had a long
standJ ng concern that MnDot really doesn't have a very high standard they
enfor s on TH 101. And frankly we still have that concern because MnDot
doesnt see themselves maintaining the road for very long but we did meet
with ~Dot at the site. 3o Ann was out there with Dave Hempel from our
engine )ring department and there are some improvements that are going to be
made to the accel and decel lane. They're not major improvements but it
will hake for a safer intersection. And the final plat was approved with
that condition. The other items that were taken by the Council are very
strai~ ht forward. In your packet I gave you some information about Kathy
Aanes( n our new staff member who you've met. {de're expecting real good
things from Kathy and are very excited to have her working with us. Kathy
was b¥ought on board, as you read for a couple of reasons. Our work load
conti ues to increase and 3o Ann has asked to go on a 4 day work week and
we ne. ded to balance those two out. {de think Kathy's experience is going
to be really ideally placed here and one of the things we'll be working on
right away is a sign ordinance and a lot of the code enforcement type
stuff. Some of the projects that will be coming along so you'll be seeing
her c¢ ne before you with some project reviews in the near future. The
Surfa( ~ {dater Management program continues to progress. 3elf say in on the
intert iew panel that we had approximately 4 weeks ago. {de interviewed 5
final,st firms and most of the City Council was there. The Mayor and Mike,
Tom{d~rkman and Ursula. In fact I think the entire City Council was there.
This as a whittling down process. We started with 15 firms to respond to
a pre
suppo~
two f i
We're
been
wot ke
peopl
iminary request. {de got it down to 5 and the group was very
tive of, well basically it came down to a primary discussion between
rms. And the 8onestroo firm was ultimately awarded the contract and
finaling up the contract language with them right now. Bonestroo has
oing some very good work for us lately. Bonestroo is the firm that
with Eagan on their water quality plan which is really the one that
look at. They're working with Maple Grove on a combined project
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 14
that
hel
-be
OU¥,
actua
·
serv
to ha
similar to ours. They pitched in at the last moment and really
us out on the Comprehensive Plan. Trying to smooth out the issues
they came up at the Metro Council and right now we have them doing
we call our Comp Sewer and Water study. It's a study of how we
bring service to the area that we expanded and now we can provide
to. So we've got a good working relationship with them and we hope
them under contract in the next few weeks and get together the task
force nd start work. So I think you'll be seeing results of that pretty
soon. Things are also starting to come together on the TH 5 corridor. As
you'r aware, working on the TH 5 corridor and determining what should be
in study area was a mandated of Council when they adopted the
Com nsive Plan. You had already made that recommendation as well and
about month and a half ago we did have a tour. Bus tour of the TH 5
corr' . We had along Btll Marsh from the University as well as a
1 pe architect from Barton Aschman who's helping us right now in
dow design project. There was a lot of excitement generated by that
bus and as a follow up to that, we've been negotiating to put together
a pr that will combine the talent of the, primarily of the University.
The versity Urban Design Center has a lot of computer modeling expertise
and 're very interested in doing sort of an experimental project. Sort
of do you envision what's going to happen here and then you can play
with I mean it's actually what they call an CAD CAM system and you can
set u ~ifferent scenarios and see what they'll look like. The Arboretum
inter ngly enough is also going to be participating in this with
Causi me a little bit of trepidation, I'd like to see their role a little
more ned because of meetings I've relayed to you out there but I think
it's that we're bringing them on the inside instead of bumping heads
on outside. So hopefully again you'll be seeing something down the
pike n the not too distant future with that. The HRA is going to look at
this ogram tomorrow night. We're using HRA funds to pay for the City's
share ,f doing the study. I've got to sit down with the City Manager and
clap :t the work program but it's our anticipation that the work effort
itsel as far as it has to be coordinated obviously with the City Council
and HRA but the primary dialogue to get the stuff to~ether and off the
grou would be with the Planning Commission. So you'll be getting exposed
to in depth as that comes together. I had a few other things. Oh,
one t lng I threw in there and it's peripherally related to the surface
water to this design study and it gets a little esoteric but we've been
looki into getting a geographic information system. The SIS. It's a
buzz a lot of things around the City and they're fairly expensive to
get i but now that we're able to piggyback it on two major projects, the
cost ,s down co.nsiderably. The SIS system is a computer generated data
base f all city functions and it's based upon a series of layers based
upon city map. The layers could include the utility system. The city
to by. You could put variances. You could put where you have
comp ints. You could put building permits. You could put zoning
rio ions and you can layer this thing altogether and it really
facilJ ,es manipulating the data. Making it available to us when we're
writiTg reports. Making things available to citizens when they want to
check n a property they're looking at buying.
Emmin~s: You put all your overlay districts on there. All the mapping
that > 'ye done with trees.
Plann~
July 1
Krauss
want t
genera
togeth
differ
It's s
Commission Meeting
1991 - Page 15
Or wetlands. Information and you can generate any kind of may you
out of this and it's a centralized. Right now this information is
[ly available in 3 dozen draws and 4 offices. You've got to put it
and it's not exact and it's difficult to update because there's
~nt bases. It's really a wonder what you can do with this stuff.
>mething that we've looked at trying to budget for the last couple of
years nd really it's very tough to bite that big a bullet but now we're
getti~2 as a part of the storm water plan, we're getting a lot of the City
base ~pping done in digitized format anyway. It doesn't cost them anymore
to do it the old fashion way on mylars than to do it off of a computer work
static n. And we structure the program in such a way that we're getting
enough product out of that and out of the TH 5 study that we've really got
a sigrificant percentage of what we need to get this system off the ground.
Hopefully in the not too distant future you'll be seeing the benefits of
that. I hope our information for you will be more precise. Our ability to
follo~ up on things will be greater. Our responsiveness should be better
so that will be an interesting thing to follow. What I have attached here
is a report that was prepared by Hartley Associates who's a consultant
who's ~orked with the City on our computer needs. The person who's helping
us tie all this together. In your packet I threw in an item on Moon Valley
litig~ ~ion. It was dated June 20th and there's since been some updates
from this. As you're aware, we developed a new grading and mining and
earth work permitting process last year. It was done partially in response
to Moon Valley but it was also done quite legitimately to respond to an
area t aat we had very little in the way of regulatory control. Moon Valley
was ir ~olved, as you recall in there from the start. They participated.
They ~ad copies of all the ordinances. Their attorneys were at all the
meeti
apply
lette'
was ur
pre-eh
to r e
that
additJ
plannJ
the ye
and s~
had s(
autho)
toget}
was g(
gave
have
that
Monda
haven
respo~
this
needs
obvio~
manne~
owner
speakt
ge. Well the ordinance once it was adopted gave them 6 months to
for a permit. Moon Valley in spite of being reminded by registered
several times to apply, refused to do so. At the time the 6 months
· when we were on the verge of taking action against them, they
~tively filed suit against us claiming we had no right or authority
Jlate in this case. The Judge, Judge Canning down in Chaska said
3at was wrong. We did have the right to regulate. Gave them an
>nal 30 days tQ make application to the City. They have retained a
ng consultant who both the City Attorney and I are famliar with over
ars and who is a legitimate and responsible professional. He came in
id he'd only been given, this ~as virtually the week that the Judge
id your stuff was due. He came in and said they were just given the
ity to work on the project and that he needed enough time to get it
er. In the interest of trying to be cooperative and since nothing
lng on out there at the moment that we felt we had to react to, we
im an additional 30 days which was up until the end of June. And we
etters from our Attorney going back and forth confirming that. Well
ime period passed and I got a call from the planning consultant on
indicating that there's much more data that they need that they
t acquired yet and they want to do soil borings and other sort of
sible investigation. I said that's fine. I understand why you need
tuff but why wasn't it done 8 months ago and he's claiming that he
another 1 to 2 months to prepare the application. I think for
s reasons I'm growing increasingly frustrated with their whole
in handling this and I don't how much of it frankly is due to the
of the property who you've met, Tom Zwier or his attorney but in
ng to our attorneys, we already unilaterally extended Judge Canning's
Planni
July
order
that d
in vic
not he
heat c
consul
proper
Commission Meeting
1991 - Page 16
:or them to comply in the interest of being cooperative. They busted
~adline. We are now going back to the 3udge and saying that they're
ation of his order and asking him to shut them down. Now whether or
11 do that is open to some question but we really want to keep the
this. I think they're making a good faith effort, or at least the
sant is to comply but I'm not sure that he has the backing of the
:y owner and again we want to keep the flame to their feet. We'll be
lettir~g the City Council know this action on Monday so they can confirm
thatt~ey want us to proceed along this route. But that's where it stands
right ow. At this point I don't expect to see anything in our hands until
somet in September.
8atzl
Counc ?
So you've already done that or you're going to ask the City
that
Let
We'd
infor
along
this.
We're going to ask the City Council for authorization to handle it
~y or just basically tell them we're in the process of doing this.
know if this is a problem. Anytime we open the City to litigation
ke the blessings of the Council. At least to have them fully
but this is pretty much consistent with what we've been doing all
We have been as patient as I think anybody could possibly be on
Emmim : Alright.
Erhar I noticed in the newspaper this week, was it Opus that announced?
Olsen Ryan. '
Erhar Ryan announced. Which sections are those?
Kr
rail
Rod
Well there's two. Ryan is looking at the site south of the
tracks off of Audubon Road north of what's his name's property.
's property. The triangular piece kind of down in the valley.
: Okay. Is that weather station still active?
: Yes it is. We met with them.
Er : That's next to that then?
Kr : The weather station would be contained within it. They are
worki on submitting plans for a PUD on that site.
Erhar' : Are both sites south of the railroad?
: No. The other one is the one north. We've advised them to go
with he site south first since that is somewhat cleaner. It's consistent
with Comprehensive Plan and there's some possibility. Setting services
in t is a fairly complicated matter but we want to get the ball
rolli . The other one that they're doing.
Erhar' : Is that serious?
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 17
Services?
Er
The whole project. Is this project serious?
T
after
that
scen
Oh they're quite serious, yeah. The other project is in the
;cod area. You know you almost don't want to kick this one so soon
lng through the whole thing but when the Comp Plan was adopted, we
the residential uses around Timberwood but you'll recall I told you
City Council, after a lot of discussion came off with an alternate
.o that could, or may be considered in that area around Timberwood.
Emmin~ : You're talking about the area between Timberwood and TH 5?
Kraus~ Right.
Olsen By the school.
Emmin! : Yeah, the school site.
Kraus~ Exactly. And there were $ conditions that were set before the
City )uld consider a non-residential use there. I don't remember exactly
what y were but one was preservation of the school site. Another was
pr on of the creek corridors as recreational areas. Establishment
of er. Basically brick or better with primarily office construction. A
reall Class A type of project. Higher architectural standards. Higher
'ng standards. The works. Ryan understands that and believes that
the is a worthwhile one to pursue. The premise that we'd be bringing
this to you with is that they meet those $ criteria. Now that one is
just as straight forward as the southern one for obvious reasons.
Erhar Do you feel, you're thinking about that kind of quality on the
n one as well? Is it an office or industrial?
Olsen Industrial.
Kraus: : The southern one, yeah. They're looking for buildings that are
more imilar to what we have in the existing industrial park. That kind
of.
Erhar : Like our yucky building.
Kr : That kind of a mix you know. In fact they saw the higher quality
build ngs going up near Audubon. Then as you go back down in the valley
and y, 're near the railroad tracks, there it probably is going to be the
tip panel type. Very small office component. And which we have a need
for. have no space virtually for any of this anymore in this city.
That' a real out of the way place. So I expect you'll be seeing some
appli ion for that within the next couple months. We're proceeding to
deal ith the school site. We wanted to keep that alive and it was always
clear us from the time that the Mayor and City Manager and I and Tom
Wot n met with them a year and a half ago, that if we wanted a school to
happe there, it's something that the City's going to have to work to make
happe' . The fellow that we dealt with at the School District has since
left become the Superintendent for Shakopee I believe. We had a
Planni
July
meetir
tells
sincer
belie~
it.
school
compet
cost
School
optior
and fa
and I
this
see ha
that.
but if
of Tin
distri
for t~
keep
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 18
~ with the Superintendent of the Chaska Schools 3-4 weeks ago. He
as'that they're still very interested in the site. That they
~ly believe, or he's speaking for himself you know. He sincerely
~s that they need to expand and that Chanhassen is the place to do
~ were working under the assumption that this would be a middle
· It's a very touchy issue because of the old Chanhassen/Chaska
itive espirit I guess but there's a possibility that it may be more
ffective for them to convert the Chaska High School to a Middle
and build a new high school here. He in no way committed to either
· He has informed us that he is convening some sort of a building
~ilities committee to look at expansions and to make these decisions
believe I'm supposed to go over to the School Board at the end of
onth to give them an overview of the Comprehensive Plan and what we
:pening around there· So we're trying to keep the ball rolling with
There's a very good potential that, again this is very preliminary
we're able to put together a package with Ryan on the area in front
Derwood, that it would be done with some sort of a redevelopment
~t. We could then free up the money to be able to secure the land
s school district. So these things are all in the works and I can
ou posted at this point.
Emmin!~si~ Is there enough space there for a high school and all of the open
space u need by a high school for sports and other extracurricular
activ. 'es and also for this business park?
Kraus~,: Well keep in mind we set aside a 40 acre chunk for the middle
schoo .
Emmin~ : Alright and how much land is in that chunk north?
Kraus~: Well there's 137 acres that's been considered for sale. 40 acres
of wh h we assumed would be school. Of the rest, of the remaining 100
acres about 40 acres, 40 or so is in an area that we designated for
indus' ial use adajacent to the McSlynn. There are two creek systems that
div that so at dispute is that the middle 50-60 acres. So we'll see how
that .
5mmi n~
Olsen:
be in
~ugust .
: ...ordinance is going to be on in August huh?
Yeah, we just sent out the letter with the ordinance and it should
he second meeting in August. Will be in the second meeting in
OPEN SCUSSION: NON-CONFORNIN~ USES.
Olsen The non-conforming use, that one came about when there's been
reque., for variances in Carver Beach where a house might already be 25
feet 'om the front yard lot line but they want to make an expansion. Like
in t back it still meets all the requirements but technically you'd have
to go brough the variance procedure because it's a non-conforming
struci ute. So what this is meant to do is allow us to still permit that
expam ' n so much as it's not expanding the non-conformity· It's the house
is a itted use but it just doesn't meet the setback and the
no nformity isn't increased. So it allows us to do that. The way the
Planning Commission Meeting
July 17, 1991 - Page 19
ordinalnce is stated right now, it's a little confusing. You can kind of
readi~. It gets into use and then structure. It's confusing so what
we're lng to do is make it clear that you can add an addition to your
home long as the setback's not being.
Emmin~ : f%nd then Roger, what Roger has written here is suppose to clear
up confusion?
Olsen: Right.
Emmin~ : Okay.
Batzl I must be sicker than I thought. I understood it.
Emmin.< : Well, Roger's the guy who eventually has to enforce these things.
If th makes him happy, I'm not going to complain.
Olsen It was a request from us. The other one really gets into a lot
more ion.
Emmin.~ : Well let's not go onto those. What do you want us? Is this a
news
Olsen; Yeah. We thought we'd throw it on.
Emmin~ ~' Sounds like a good idea to me. Does anyone got any comments on
that?
Batzli T don't like it.
Emmi n,, : Why?
Who's deciding whether it exaccerbates the non-conforming problem
batzl
or
Olsen
Batzl
that.
Olsen
Well if the problem's the setback and they're not.
But this will cover other instances. It's not limited to just
No. It's the non-conformity so if it's a duplex that is in a
singl family district, they cannot, we have another section. You can't
make into a six unit. Whatever that non-conformity is, you can't
incr that.
Batzl : Yeah. But there may be instances when you don't know whether
techn~ ly what the non-conformity may worsen.
Kraus: : We have surveys submitted in support of the building permit.
We're e to tell from that.
Emmin~ : Well that's where it's going to come up is when people come in.
P1
July
Commission Meeting
· 1991 - Page 20
Olsen It's just we've had a couple of cases and I don't know. It's one of
those maybe it doesn't need to be fixed but it's the way the ordinance is
now, had to take people through a variance procedure which we're all
y in favor of. Where they'd actually be improving the home in an
area needs to be improved.
Batzl
pr
getti
It's basically making them go through an expense that they
y shouldn't have to go through. Going down to the County and
the names of all the people and addresses.
Olsen Yeah, it's expensive so it gives us a little more flexibility.
Thing,~ really aren't going to be changing that we don't want to be
chan .
Emmin~ : Okay. Anything else?
Batzl : No. I'd rather talk about the trees than this stuff.
Emmin~ : The trees?
Batzl : Well her letter.
Emmin~ : No, no. That's not next.
Batzl : I know but I'm saying, I'd rather talk about that.
Emmin~ : You're going to have to wait.
NON-C,
RECREATIONAL BEACH~OTS.
Olsen The purpose of this is each summer we realize that the recreational
beach that have been grandfathered in are actually increasing their
use. 're expanding the docks. They've expanding the number of boats
being red and it's one of those how do we address that. It gets down to
provi what was there versus what is there now. That's tough because
we've had three different surveys in the past 10 years where we can maybe,
the 's will show there's only 2 boats on that recreational beachlot
and m~ybe 2 of them were out on the lake while we were out there. It's
goinglto be hard for us to prove what was actually grandfathered in. $o
one
contr(
get a
For
and t
with.
and n,
it's
situat
are
Batzl
lot?
our options was trying to do kind of like what we did with
ctor's yards with conditional use permits. Make them all come in and
~ermit to document what was there when the ordinance was in effect.
all to come to an agreement that that was what was grandfathered in
~t's all that's there so we have a legal document from which to work
So if next year we found that they were permitted to have 4 boats
xt year they have 6, we have something we can enforce. Right now
sally not enforceable. Trolls Glen is going through a difficult
ion where actually the Homeowner's Association, the people within it
lng each other over the use of their beachlot.
: Is that the one where they couldn't get the two boats off the
Or is that another one?
Kraus: : No, that's a different one.
P1
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 21
Emmin! : That's a different one. Trolls Glen is on the southern end of
Lake nnewashta and it's a real nasty.
Olsen: And in that one we're being, the City's being pulled into that
it is our ordinance to be enforced and the two people who are
brin!
so it
provi
that
the case against the others saying that they can only limit the
of boats out there. Is requiring the City to enforce the ordinance
ght go to court. And again, we're just going to have a tough time
what was there and who has the right to what. So this is one way
think we can get a hold on it. It doesn't solve the problem.
Emmin~ : I think this is real important to do because I've been on
Min hta for 7 years and it's absolutely obvious to anybody that the
beach )ts that have docks and boats, there are many more. The docks get
lon~
perm
ought
the
the
some
to
somet
and the boats are more and I think it's important as part of this
lng structure too. Maybe to get a permit they have to tell us, we
have a description of the boats and their license numbers and who
's are. The boats that are out there at the time they apply for
mit. I have no doubt in my mind that there are boats in front of
these beachlots for people who don't live in the area. They belong
people. I don't know if that matters or not. It may matter to us
Olsen
1 i ce n.~
Emmi n!
Olsen
only
Or we could make it so that we do checks. We can check the
·
: It will never happen. We don't have the people to enforce that.
But if you have a homeowners association with 50 lots and they're
llowed 4 boats, they do a rotation system so that might be kind of.
: Well if we had annual renewal though like we have for the toilets.
Emmin~
most
batzlJ
in.
: I think the thing is though, is just to cap their growth is the
nt thing. I think it's critical to do.
: It's nice to do it this way because you're forcing them to bring
're going to make them do the work.
Olsen They might come in saying that they had the right to 15 boats and
we kncw that that's not so it's still going to be difficult to bring them
down t o what actually did exist.
Emmin<.s: Going back to the one that had the pontoon boat out in front of
it wh~re there shouldn't be a boat. You're pursuing that separately. That
was r~;ved as a condition by the City Council and you're just going to
haveI City Attorney pursue that?
Kraus : We're still trying to do that in-house. What we try to do and
it's procedure that was developed primarily in Public Safety but we agree
with. You try to do these things diplomatically at first. I don't
belie e, when you're talking about somebody's boat, it's like talking about
their dog or their kids. They feel very possessive about it. I doubt that
it's oing to work but maybe we can work out something. Failing that, we
Planning Commission Meeting
July )7, 1991 - Page 22
have the ability to issue citations or ask the City Attorney to take legal
actior. We're hoping that this one's a little more clear cut than most of
these issues seem to be. Oftentimes when you look at the information as
I indi ~-ated to you earlier, you're just relunctant to put yourself in the
positi >n of standing in front of a judge and saying.
Emmin,. : But this one, as I recall was specifically granted with no docks,
no bo~
Kraus.¢ This one is one of the more biatant ones.
Emmim : Yeah. I think there's a second boat out there at this time,
Kraus: They acknowledged it.
Emmin~ : Oh they have?
Olsen: Isn't it in front of the Lund's property?
Kraus.~: When we were out there this morning, yeah and it was.
Emmim s: You didn't look at my dock did you?
Kraus: : No, there was another boat...
Olsen So we're going to bring it back for a public hearing and that will
also nclude notifying all the recreational beachlots. The legal and
non-c, nforming ones and it's really going to open up everything again but I
think it almost has to be done.
Emmin<. s: Oh yeah. I think it's important to do.
Olsen Trolls Glen will also, we had discussion last week with the
homeo~ nets association and rather than the City pursuing our action against
them to bring them into conformance, they have agreed to make application
for a conditional use permit for a variance or even to request the
ordim nce to be repealed. So no matter what it's coming back. The
recre~ tional beachlot ordinance t~or it's annual visit. So hopet~ully we can
kind f f get everything all together and address everybody's issues. Should
be fuT.
Emmi n~
BatzlJ
didn't
know~
Olsen
have
plat
Batzl
s: Okay, Brian wants to talk about trees.
: I didn't know what the Urban Tree Management Program was. I
know we had one. I didn't know we were working on it so I didn't
e could complete it.
It's a pilot project with the DNR Forestry Department. We don't
nything yet. We've got a preliminary, the aerial and we've got a
howing the trees and so we are pursuing that so we can.
: Is this our tree overlay?
Olsen Exactly.
Plann
July
Batzl
over 1,
Olsen
Emmin
Olsen
the we
BatzlJ
Olsen~
the Dr
ca n p)
ordin~
prese)
Batzl
Olsen
with 1
Batzlj
pet pi
Olsen
lot
been
get
Emm i n
Olsen
prohi
ta 1 ke
Batzl
Emmin
here.
Rick
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 23
: I didn't know we had a name for it. If she had said tree
y, I would have understood.
Tree overlay? I wouldn't know what you were talking about.
s: Tree inventory.
But it's also going to include the new ordinance. So it's still in
rks.
: So have we hired a student worker?
Well there's none available right now so we might be working with
R with some of their interns to work with it. Or else in the fall we
obably get an intern but we're going to still move ahead with the
nce part and have it in place and once we do find out what we want to
ye, we'll map it.
: Ken Holman and Jonathan Steigler?
They're DNR. They're in the St. Paul office and they work more
he ordinance.
: $o there is no current model ordinance? We're going to be like a
oject for them?
Exactly. And there's a couple of new ordinances that are getting a
recognition but our's will add to those. And also we've already
ontacted by the Builder's Association of Minnesota and they want to
volved to make sure their interests are met.
s: What are their interests?
I think that they just want to make sure we don't make it
itive to build. I don't know exactly. We haven't sat down and
with them. They just want to come and I said that's fine.
: That sounds good.
s: We've stalled as long as we can. We've been fooling around up
What can we do? When do you expect whoever's coming?
athre: We were expected to show up at 9:00.
Emmin s: Okay, let's take a break until 9:00 and see who shows up.
Planni
3uly 1
INFOR~
LUNDGF
RSF , ~
OF LA~
A. PF
L~
B. WE
ag Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 24
%L DISCUSSION:
--N 8ROS./ORTENBLAD/ERSBO, PROPERTY ZONED RR, RURAL RESIDENTIAL AND
5SIDENTIAL SINGLE FAMILY LOCATED EAST OF POWERS BOULEVARD AND SOUTH
= LUCY ROAD:
--LIMINARY PLAT TO SUBDIVIDE 30+ ACRES TO CREATE 37 SINGLE FAMILy
FS.
FLAND ALTERATION PERMIT TO ALTER/FILL CLASS B WETLANDS.
Paul ~auss presented the staff report on this item.
/
Emmin~: Does the applicant want to make some kind of presentation?
Terry .~
Terry
Wayzat
people
anyboC
our cc
Roger
Inter
to th
like
qua 1 i
then
-'orbord: My name is Terry Forbord with Lundgren Bros., 935 East
~ 81vd. in Wayzata, Minnesota. With me this evening are a number of
who will help me hopefully answer some questions for you and for
f else who may be here to hear what we have to say. Mr. Rick Sathre,
nsulting engineer, Mr. Frank Svoboda, Wildlife Biologist and Mr.
Carpenter who's a Limnologist. They are with the firm 8faun
rec. Paul pretty much has said a lot of the things that are relevant
is proposal so I won't get too much into those things because I would
the people that are here with me this evening who are very well
lied to deal with the specific issues, talk to you a little bit and
~3pefully you'll have some questions or if there's any other
discussion we can answer your questions. But I would like to just touch
upon a couple things briefly. You may recall a number of months back I was
before you with a gentleman named Mr. 3ohn Shardlow. We talked a lot about
PUb's because I know the City of Chanhassen was looking very strongly at
amend ng their Code and their ordinances relative to PUb's. If you recall
in th, t discussion there was a lot of discussion over what is a PUD and
what s it for. Typically there's a misconception of what it is and what
it is Jsed for. It doesn't necessarily always primarily have to do wit~
densi' / or lot sizes or things like that. However, it may and it doesnt
neces~ ~rily have anything to do with trade-offs or anything else. However,
it ma'. When we first met with the staff many, many months ago, even
befor, we secured the development rights to this property. We've had
numercus discussions about this because we knew it was a very, very
sensitive area but that's why we had selected it. We've learned over 22
years hat our customers like to live in areas where there is wetlands and
there s wildlife and there's neat things to look at so we typically try to
find he most beautiful sites we can and then do the best we can with them.
And sc in working with staff it was very evident to all of us, staff and
ourse yes and our consultants that this was a classic piece of property to
be de' eloped as a planned unit development. But because of the things the
city ~as going through in redeveloping their ordinance and because of the
varioLs timeframe that we were on and that timeframe has only to do with
the
build~
that
becau
Becau
ct that the weather in Minnesota gives you only about 6 months of
Die season. It was mutually agreed upon, relunctantly by all of us
~ybe the best thing to do was to proceed under standard subdivision
hich Paul has already described. That was a dismay to all of us
e this is a classic piece of property for a Planned Unit Development.
e it has natural amenities that should be treated very carefully.
Planni
July
But u
to do
flies
made
evider
you ar
that
is may
there
wetlar
Hopefu
things
So th~
yOU '
much
and t~
know
very
They
proble
Becau~.
many t
we COL
people
reseat
surpr
use i'
things
we wet
here
We we~
man
has bE
this t
engine
give
This
setba,
refine
Devel¢
here.
Rick ~.
La ke L
or Po~
site.
little
The ET
on the
approk
confi~.
of th
can s~
south
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 25
der standard subdivision regs you can't. It's literally impossible
it. Unless you come in and ask for numerous variances which kind of
in the face of what everybody's really trying to do. So after we
n honest effort to make this work with standard regs, it became
t that we should withdraw. We should reconsider and then come before
~ recommend that this would be a Planned Unit Development because
ill allow us to bury things like, it's not so much clustering as it
De varying a front yard setback. Varying a street width here and-
because it may save a significant tree or it may save from filling a
J which would be allowable under the DNR and the Army Corps.
lly we can modify some of those things by varying some of the strict
that are normally required under a standard subdivision regulations.
t's why we have pursued it. And I've attended enough meetings that
had relevant to those discussions that it seems like this is very
n the spirit of things I've been hearing from the Planning Commission
~ City Council and staff for years here. And I must say, because I
taff is too modest to admit it, but I must say that they've been
~ery interested in this and helpful to us trying to solve problems.
aren't in any way tried to impede us. They've said here's some
~s, what can we do to fix it and they've been very helpful in that.
e it's such a sensitive site and because we're not experts at these
hings like wetlands and wildlife, we pursued to find the best people
ld in the region to help us and assist us. And so we have hired the
that are here tonight to do that. Through the process of
ching this site we found out some things that were somewhat
sing to us. That the major wetland that is on that site is, and I'll
in lay terms but it's very close to death because of very many
which they will address. So that kind of changed our course of what
e trying to do. ~e realized not only were we ~oing to be coming in
nd trying to create a sensitive development. A nice place to live.
e ~oing to have to do some fixing of what man had already damaged and
s the problem here. Over the last ~0-50 years. What man has done
en very damaging to that site and we're going to try to fix that. At
ime I'd like to introduce Mr. Rick Sathre. He's the consulting
~r and planner on this proposed neighborhood community and he can
>u a little background of the proposal. And this is conceptual only.
s not with the items that Paul has talked about. Reduced front yard
ks and the reduced street widths. Those things, those are
ments that would be made in our submission of the Planned Unit
~ment documents but it would look very similar to what you're seeing
~thre: Good evening. The red blob on here is the site. This is
ucy Road along the northern edge of the site. This is County Road 17
ers Blvd. to the east. Lake Lucy and Lake Ann. It's about a 30 acre
3ust slightly over that. Looking a little closer. Zooming in a
closer to the site you see again the property's bounded by the red.
sbo parcel is at the northeast corner. That's on the Ersbo property,
half section maps right now appears the first plat that the City
ed. Subsequently there was a second plat with a different street
uration approved. The Ortenblat property, the southwesterly property
s land is still without any division. We're combining the two. You
e to the west the larger rural parcels and to the east and to the
and to the north the urbanized subdivisions around the site. This
P1
3uly
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 26
isn't
c(
long
up
of
wetl
the
wetl
other
real
out
But
are
the
at La
into
world's best graphic but this is the City's aerial photo with
s overlaid on it. The blue boundary is the approximate site
y. Here on top of a hill is the Ersbo home and farther to the
,st is the Ortenblat home. Here's the Ortenblat driveway. Long,
iveway coming back to this house. The Ersbo driveway doesn't show
ly as well but it follows this path. In the north central portion
site there's a large open water wetland area. That's the DNR
that you see from Lake Lucy Road. Way down in the south portion of
ty and straddling the southerly boundary is another Class B
in your ordinance that appears on this site. There are several
Four other small wetland bodies also. This is a copy of the
y survey of the parcel and it shows again the houses. The two
are in red on this drawing. The large green boundary here is that
1y wetland and this one is a southerly wetland. There's also, the
nstraining thing about this property is that the wetlands are spread
much. If it was all one big body, it'd be easier to work around.
ides the two wetlands that have always appeared on your maps, there
other small ones. There's a finger of wetland south and east of
:bo home. Another one due east and then two small little pockets up
Lucy Road which are separated from this main body by the driveways
two homes.
Erha
Rick, does the water flow from one wetland to the other?
Rick thre: Yes. On the ground we've found a shallow ditch right here
con lng this one to this one. The southerly wetland is lower by, I
would uess it's 5 or 6 or 7 feet. This one's lower.
Erhar In a storm, where does the water go in that wetland?
Rick thre: Right now, before Lake Lucy Road or before there was a city
proj to upgrade Lake Lucy Road we believe that the water drained to the
south of this ditch. When the Lake Lucy Road was upgraded there was a
pipe under the street up here. Catch basins in the street and a pipe
under ~ath. Right now water could go out to the north or to the south and
I thi it'does.
Erhar And you're proposing to raise the water level of that pond?
Rick Lthre: Yes.
Erhar : Well obviously you're going to build up the south end. Am I
getti ahead of you a little bit here?
Rick e: Well you're getting a little ahead of me but we're talking
about king the water out of this wetland to the south but we're talking
about n effect damming the wetland up by filling this ditch or eliminating
the and plugging the northerly outlet so we can hold more water in
there Get more volume in the wetland. More water volume for several
Emmin.~ : Okay, how will the water then go to the south?
Planning Commission Meeting
July 17, 199l - Page 27
Rick S~thre: It would drain through a series of storm sewers and wetlands.
The ex[sting wetlands and ones that we're proposing to create or enhance.
Terry --orbord: There's quite an extensive comprehensive system that we've
develc:ed to accomplish all those things and we can get into that in
greater deatil if you'd like.
Rick ~thre: This Just recaps basically what we're doing. What we were
proposing to do if it hadn't been recommended now that we go back and look
at PUC We had been thinking that we would do an RSF subdivision with
these ~tandard setbacks. 30 front, 30 rear and 10 side and the land lends
itself well to creating 37 single family lots on little over 30 acres with
an ave rage lot area of about 30,000 square feet or over 30,000 square feet.
The density of that is about 1.25 units per acre. This is the concept plan
that we're working on refining right now. If you'll remember the ~rsbo
plats that you've reviewed in the past in this corner had different street
configurations. The significantly different thing about what we're doing
now is we're trying to get a street that aligns with Arlington Court I
belie~s it is on the north side of Lake Lucy Road to come into this site
and gc through the site past the ~rsbo home to provide a large loop through
both ~roperties. The difficulty here, one of the things we're working on
now is trying to work on the curvature of this street and tightening up the
alignnsnt of the road. Maybe working on narrowin~ the road for a distance
to sneak through or sensitively pass between the steep hill and the
wetlard. That's one of the ma3or thin~;s that we're working on right now.
Tryin~ to do that sensitively. Over here in this portion of the property
there s some beautiful trees and here to we'd like to find a sensitive way
throu h that tree stand with the road so we're working on, through the PUD
provisions we'd be working on some refinements to this plan to sensitively
go th~0ugh that area as well. Once you get back into the southerly portion
of the property, we don't have steep slope constraints anymore. We don't
have tree constraints anymore but what we have down there is wetlands and
they'¥e constraining as well. Here's a graphic that shows that subdivision
superimposed on the existing lotting pattern in the area so you can get an
idea, feel for how the streets line up with streets elsewhere and how the
lots ~ould back up towards other parcels. I guess you'd have to study that
one fcr a while to see the real important features of it. This is a
graphic that shows, the red boundaries on this plan are the wetland
bounderies. Braun Intertec, their technicians went into the field and
physically staked the boundaries of the six wetland areas. Our surveyors
at Sa~hre-Berquist went out behind, them and located the stakes and then
we've drawn them on the plan. Drawn the lines. Connected the dots if you
will end so those red lines represent those boundaries of the wetlands as
they ~xist. The blue areas are upland areas now which we would-propose to
turn nto wetland. Some-of these areas would be, this little blue area and
this ne are brand new wetland areas that would be used for sedimentation.
They'¢ be water treatment basins. Trying to trap some of the nutrients and
the sediment that was heading toward the large wetland. We'd also be using
this e 'ea on the northwest corner for the same purpose. To trap as much as
we ca~ of the bad things in the water before it gets to the wetland. This
basin n the western boundary of the site and also this new blue area plus
this portion of the existing wetland we're talking about we're
investigating the logistics of creating new wildlife pond~. New wetlands
that ~ ~ve a very diverse character. Have a varied edge to them and a nice
Pl
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 28
bot
wetla
have
wetla
sedi
topography so we encourage different plant growth. So three of the
that we would be draining actively through with storm sewer, we'd
little different character· These would be very natural looking
we hope. Much better than what the site has right now and the
ponds would be more of a functional, a man made treatment system.
Erbar Rick, can you throw that back up again. It looks like there's a
high ound between your sediment pond and the existing Class A or is it in
reali .
Rick
e: Here? Or there?
Erhar Both places. That's just shows where the edge is or is it
gra ly. It's all going to be one?
Rick e: I guess the way I see it, and I think we're still working on
how i should look but around the periphery of this DNR wetland there is a
fairl gradual slope· A lot of the slope it's very gradual. So the way I
see i that edge would continue up and once you got beyond the wetland
y, then there'd be a rolled slope back down.
Erbar $o you see those being separate from the existing wetland then?
Rick Lthre: Well we need to separate them physically because of the
that we're trying to promote in these. We're actually trying to
use to trap the sediment. So we don't want to intermingle them·
Erhar How is that different from what we've done in the past?
Kr
on.
two
It's
bar r i
pr
of
going
That's the thing· I think there's something that needs to be
on here and possibly it's something that Frank Svoboda can touch
;tionally there needs to be a separation for the flow between the
for this thing to work. Visually we want this to work as a unit.
ng to be so close and...indicated, there's some design where the
is at the water level. We can have wetland vegetation on the
· There's not going to be a wall. So it would look like a...sort
land with different areas when it's all said and done. It's not
be this standard, uniform, rectangular, excavated retention pond
off i the corner someplace. It will look from a distance or look from
being ere as though you're talking about a single wetland.
Erhar : Okay. Why is this going to work better to clean the water than
what just described?
Terry
hear
CO'
Right
very
like
the
wet
d: You're raising really good questions and part of the
ion, it's a step by step process, as we walk through that you'll
s to that. 3ust one more item to address that. The
,ation district, the conservation zone that Paul spoke of that would
nd that wetland is going to be somewhere between 10 and 20 feet.
what we're determining is what is the optimum amount· That's
rd to measure because that depends on the plant types and things
but because of that and emergent vegetation that will occur in
and area, you won't even be able to see that. It will look like...
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 29
Rick hre: I suspect you'd see a change in plant life. You'd have a
di plant species there than you would inside this area or just
insi here a little bit. I guess as long as I'm on this, I didn't talk
about a minute ago about where we're intruding on the wetlands and I
shoul do that. Starting up here, in order to get a road into the site we
to impact unfortunately either this wetland or this little tiny one.
We're king a conscious decision that if we had to choose that we should
be im ing this small little basin. Not this one. So we're showing a
filli of about half of that little area which is a very small area. A
tenth )f an acre or less than that. Also up here in the northeast corner
there a small little wetland area. I think Frank will talk about why
they' there. But anyway we're talking about eliminating that one
alto~ her. As we are proposing to eliminate this basin which is straight
east the Ortenblat home and we're also showing some encroachment into
fin~ of this southerly wetland. An item of major interest and major
work been the effort to minimize or eliminate the impact on the large
wetla by this road. As I said before, we're working to try to minimize
or fen anyway the impact on the upland grading here. There's steep
slo. and trees in the upland. · Trying to balance that out with some
in .on perhaps into the reed canary grass that surrounds the open water
wetla . We're working on the logistics of that. I guess the graphic I'll
share ith you right now is the topographic map. The significant tree
areas the site. North of the Ersbo home on this northerly facing slope
there re a great many dead elms unfortunately. There's also other
speci . As you get east of the Ersbo home and then down in the southerly,
ly part of the site there's mature trees. We'd want to preserve
as of those as we can. East of the Ortenblat driveway next to the
wetl there are significant trees as well as just north of the Ortenblat
home. But the absolutely best trees on the site are way up here in this
nor corner. Large oaks and other large trees. One of the things the
PUD 1 let us do I hope is lessen the right-of-way width and even lessen
the aent width perhaps for a ways to get through that area and minimize
our uption. With that I'd like to turn it back to Terry.
Terry
i
the
down
about
may
what
ach
home
-bord: Let me just touch upon a couple of things here before I
the next individual. Probably the easiest thing to do as far as
lopment of these two combined sites would be to cut all the trees
then grade the entire site flat and we wouldn't have to worry
of the things we're talking about here tonight. Obviously that
the most efficient thing but it certainly doesn't fit the spirit of
're all trying to achieve. The other thing that we're trying to.
here that we have consider obviously are the people who live there
and who's property it is. Mr. Ersbo, he's going to stay in his
he's going to live here so obviously we have to be sensitive to
his w hes because he's going to be there. The same with the Ortenblats so
all t physical constraints that exist on the site plus protecting the
priva' property rights of the individuals so they can enjoy their quiet
en' nt of their property, made it a difficult site of where to put the
roads nd deal with all of these issues but I think as you can see by just
this xhibit right here, the different constraints were enormous in trying
to ma~ this work. At this time I'd like to introduce Roger Carpenter.
He's ~ Limnologist and when we took Frank out as a consultant to tell us
about these wetlands and what we should and shouldn't do, the first comment
he mace was, well I'll tell you right now this thing's real sick. He says
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, i99i - Page 30
there hould be these types of vegetations around it. There should be
these ~pes of vegetations in it. And that thing, for whatever reasons is
dying r very close to death. $o we decided we'd better get somebody in
who's n expert at understanding why that occurs and take some tests. Have
them lyzed by an independent laboratory so we're able to make some
rt ndations and part of this development process will be able to
rest the vitality that that wetland probably at one time had. Roger.
Roger
take
conc
anal
par
that
pho
nter: I'd just like to explain basically what I did to try to
look at the situation as it exists now and try to make some
ions. We went out and we took some water samples and had them
~d at a certified independent laboratory for a number of different
ers that we would normally look at in a Water body. The main thing
back was that it was extremely high in nutrients. Mainly
ous and nitrogen are the two that we would be concerned with. The
ous is the most important because that's a controlling factor for
algae ;rowth in lakes. $o after taking a look at the results of the water
anal s, everything kind of fell into place and-it kind of explained what
we seeing there which was basically as Terry mentioned, the absence of
any gent or submergent type of plants. The entire water surface is
cover with a mat of a very small plant called duck weed and that's again
char istic of an over enriched type of environment that you would see
where type of plant is able to dominant the situation to the exclusion
of types of plants. The adverse effect of this is that we aren't
able , or again the emergent types and submergent types of plants like
s or bullrushes are not able to gain a foothold. This mat of duck
weed covers everything shades out the other types of plants and it
also because of the shade reduces the oxygen so that different
types animals are not abundant in the water. The advantages of having
these fferent types of emergent and submergent types of plants is that
they e able to bind up this phospherous and nitrogen within the plant
body. Within the roots and the part of the plants that are sticking out of
the
and r
that
type
with
the d
· It's able to reduce the nutrient loading that's in the water
:e the amount of nutrients that are able to leave the site also so
more desirable type situation would be to have these, a more diverse
situation with the different types of plants we're talking about so
I think I'll introduce Frank Svoboda who will talk about some of
'ent things that can be done to enhance this wetland area.
Frank )oda: Thanks Roger. I guess I've been, Terry's been houses
alines' as long as I've been in the business of doing wildlife management
and land studies· Over the course of that time what I've learned is
that lands are really a reflection of what goes on in the surrounding
la so that the wetland is sort of a mirror or reflection of what
actua ly goes on in the upland that serves as a drainage area to feed that
wetla and provide it with water. So the first thing that we always do
when come up with a situation like this, what may be some circumstances
that don't really understand is that we take a look at the land use
hist y of a particular parcel of land and what we discovered in this case
was t t by going through or going back and looking at the aerial photos,
the e rliest one being 1937, we discovered that from 1937 through
appro tely sometime between 1937 and 1963 this area, the large wetland,
Wetla gl or the DNR wetland had been cropped that entire period o4 time
and t 's consistent with this shallow hand dug ditch that connects this
Pi
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 31
wetl
OCCUr
per
fo~ a
shall
some
ditc
basin with this basin. And again this is a fairly commpn
ce in the urbanizing areas where in the past farmers wanted to use
this wetland for hay or for pasture and what they would do is look
by wetland that was lower in elevation and then they'd dig a
ditch connecting the two wetlands together. In fact they may be in
~ances we've seen just a series of these shallow interconnecting
· Typically you'll see these ditches are somewhere in the
,od of a couple of feet wide and 18 inches to 2 feet deep. One o4
the t ngs we did that we looked at for this particular ditch, collected a
sed it core. A soil sample to see how much sediment had accumulated in
this ~tch and what we discovered was there was about 6 inches of sediment
that ~d accumulated over the years and as a result it acted as a dam and
ly because the water couldn't drain in this direction, it gradually
water ld start accumulating in the wetland. When we had the meeting
last k, one of the individuals that attended that meeting indicated that
as ntly as 1974 they actually had corn planted in this wetland and that
they could get in there to harvest that corn, this basin filled up
with ter because of heavy fall rains so they were unable to harvest that
corn op is 1974. $o in effect what might appear to be a wetland that may
have n around since the last glacier came through in fact has been
modif in the past. Has been exposed to agricultural activities. Land
use vities that have changed it's character and in fact that activity
took ace as recently as 1974. What I would like to do now is to just
bri show you some color overheads and walk you through the wetlands on
site. Wetland ~1 is the big DNR wetland to the north. Lake Lucy Road
ex right in front of these houses and at the north end of this
wetl . Wetland #1, and these classification systems, even though they
look ike they're incomprehensible, thew represent a hierachical code
that' developed by the Fish and Wildlife Service for their national
wetl inventory. I won't go into all the particulars and details of that
cl ication system other than it allows fairly detailed descriptions of
indiv 1 wetland basins so that for example the OW, the P stands for
poles' lan. That means it's a wetland. The OW stands for open 'water. G
ind that it's generally flooded. The EM stands for emergent. That
means it has emergent vegetation that actually breaks above the surface of
the . And this means that it's persistent. It continues to stand. It
doesn fall down. The F indicates that it's generally semi-permanently
flood~ representing this edge. And then the D indicates that it's been
ditc . Each of these classifications allow that sort of level of
descr tire detail. We're basically standing at the south end of the
wetla looking north. This fringe of vegetation around the edge is
prima ily canary grass. One of the things that I look for to indicate
wheth r a wetland is healthy or not is the amount of vegetative diversity
that observe. And I like to compare this to for example an
agric tural cornfield· Agricultural cornfield has only one species on it.
Corn. And that's not very productive for wildlife. One of the theories or
I it's more than a theory. A proven fact is that the more
veget tire diversity you have the more productive a particular community is
and t at also applies to wetlands so the greater diversity of vegetation
you ye, the more aquatic species and terrestrial species that you can get
utili lng that particular wetland. $o this was one of the factors that
indic ted to me that there was something not quite right here. The other
thing was that as I looked at that wetland, there should have been more
wildl fe species present and certainly there were frogs present. We've
Planni
July
observ
muskra
Commission Meeting
1991 - Page 32
~d some individual mallards using that wetland. Occasionally
;s have been observed out there but again as one of the residents
indicted at the meeting last week, an individual who has lived in this
areaf~r 26 years, he said over the last several years the productivity of
this
not at
now
WeT e
origir
right
and di
to the
and
value
to do
it's
where
of the
Wetlar
backgr
fl4 are
dr i ve~
when
with ¢
aren't
the d~
roads~
that
is th~
and tP
those
margir
is a k
somew~
and
reach~
seeps
here
is sa:
dr ive~
to We~
Wetla
here
of th
but b~
visit
that
seepa
retur
ditch
of th~
the
the
the
~tland has declined. And he said in fact several years ago it was
all uncommon to see numerous broods of ducklings on. this wetland and
did not see a brood of ducklings or any broods. What we did see
>me individual birds. $o we've had some verification as to what my
~1 hypothesis was and that was that there was something not quite
.ith this basin and that was further confirmed when Roger went out
d the water chemistry analysis. Wetland #2 is the other large basin
sou'th and again supporting a monotypic stand of reed canary grass
terally no open water in this basin whatsoever so it has limited
~s far as wildlife is concerned and one of the things we would like
to this wetland is create some open water adjacent to it to improve
[versity. I think what I'll do quickly just to get you oriented to
~hese different basins are as we're talking about them is to put one
previous overheads up so that you can get your orientation. Okay
d ~1, the DNR wetland. The one with Lake Lucy Road in the
9und. ~etland ~2 is the large wetland to the south. Wetlands ~3 and
wetlands that essentially formed as a consequence of these two
~ys that were constructed. This is not at all an unusual occurrence
gu have road construction because el%her culverts start filling in
irt and the drainage starts getting altered or else maybe elevations
set right to begin with or just as a result of the construction of
ich you start getting some minor accumulation of water in these
de ditches. The reason tha~ these are called wetlands however is
hey do satisfy the national criteria for delineating wetlands. That
¥ have to have aquatic vegetation. They have to have hydric soils
ey have to have hydrology. And certainly these two basins do meet
criteria but in terms of origin and function, they are really
al in terms of wetlands. Then the other two remaining wetlands, this
asin just to the east of the Ortenblat residence. This one is
at, actually topographically it's quite a bit higher than Wetland ~2
connected by an overland drainage swale where after the water
s a certain elevation in this wetland it kind of spills over and
overland into this basin so it's connected. This area that's shown
s just an overland spillway. $o keeping in mind then that ~etland #3
t of the 5rsbo driveway. That Wetland ~4 is west of the Ortenblat
ay. ~5 is east of the Ortenblat residence and then ~6 is connected
land ~2. As I mentioned previously the ditch that was connecting
d ~1 and #2, the hand dug ditch, the ditch itself does not show up
t all because it is so shallow but there is some trees on either side
ditch and in places there will be some canary grass and goldenrod
sically it's very shallow. In fact on the one instance when I
d the site was after quite a heavy rainfall and in spite of the fact
e had probably over an inch of rain or better, there was just some
e collected in the bottom of that ditch and within 2 days when I
ed to the site, the bottom of that ditch was entirely dry so that
is just marginally functional. ~etland ~ is the one 'that was east
Ersbo driveway. Again mostly canary grass. Some box elders around
ge. Just basically a fairly marginal wetland. ~4 is the wetland to
st of the Ortenblat driveway. This wetland is a few feet higher than
in DNR wetland and again the canary grass surrounded by some box
Planni
July I
elders
some w
trees
simila
again
site a
the de
In otb
lg Commission Meeting · 1991 - Page 33
but basically just a relatively small, small basin. Wetland ~5 bad
ter standing in it. Had various wetland type shurbs. Some wetland
nd again the canary grass. Finally wetland ~6. Basically very
to wetland ~5. Some shurbs. Wetland type shurbs. Box elders and
~anary grass. So that's an introduction overview to the wetlands on
~d what we're proposing to do as a result of the development, what
/eloper's proposing is that there will be more than just no net loss.
~r words, there will be more than an acre per acre replacement of
wetlanJs impacted relative to the wetlands replaced. $o we're
accomplishing a couple of things in this design. One is to deal with
impro%~sment of two of the wetlands to create more wildlife habitat on the
site and for three of the wetlands, as Rick indicated earlier, to use those
wetlar
Partia
to the
stradc
is the
specia
actual
Height
pond c
view,
the s~
shaIIc
somew
mathel
is. ~
perfoT
not m'
but b,
remai
perio
becau~
patti
That'
those
here
botto
slug
and b
and t
the p,
of th~
effic
singl
DNR w
that
the w
there
facto'
runs
nutri
reduc
we'I1
Js as water quality enhancement pools and that would be the wetland.
ly filled wetland west of Ortenblat's driveway. The larger wetland
east of the DNR wetland and what appeared as a square wetland
ling that drainage ditch between #l and ~2. What's illustrated here
concept called the Walker model and Dr. Walker is a researcher who
lizes in urban storm water quality. Urban storm water management and
ly he did some of his developmental work in the City of Vandals
s where this particular concept was tested out and applied. This
nlled the Walker pond is actually, if you look at it from a planned
looks almost like a triangle. The water comes into this triangle at
allow end and weaves at the wide end. Then it has a bench at the
~ end and then gradually gets deeper with the maximum depth being
ere between 4 to lO feet. And there's some fairly a variety of
~tical formulas that you go through to calculate how bi~ this pond
)w deep it's supposed to be and what size it needs to be in order to
m the water quality function. I won't get into that because that's
area of expertise. There's other, Roger knows the details of that
sically what I do want to emphasize here is that a slu~ of water
s in this pool and it remains in this pool'for a certain minimum
of time. tong enough for the sediment particles to settle out
e most of the nutrients come into a body of water, the phospherous
ularly comes into a wetland attached to particles of sediment.
a primary means of transport. So if you can provide a means for
sediment particles to settle out. If you can cause this water to sit
nd remain calm and allow those small particles to settle to the
then the next time you get a major storm event and you get a new
~ water coming in, it pushes this cleansed water out the outlet end
ings in a new, or the water that's in here now is dirty so to speak
en again the process repeats itself. And depending upon the size of
nd, treatment efficiency can vary from 40~ to 60~ and if you put two
:se in series, one ahead of the other, you can increase the treatment
ency by a little bit. What we're proposin~ is to use these as
, celled ponds to reduce the nutrient loading before it gets into the
~tland. Then the other element of this plan, because we recognize
.he DNR wetland has deteriorated in quality, we're proposing to raise
.ter level in that wetland to increase the volume of water that's in
So by increasing the volume of water, we can increase the dilution
of the nutrients. So besides pre-treating some of the water that
.nto the wetland, we'll also be holding more water there so that the
,nt load will be diluted and the other part of that is if we can
the nutrient load, increase the water level, we're expecting that
get a vegetation response in that basin that once we change the water
Planni
July 1
chemis
that 1
vegeta
bring
What ~
condit
happen
sunlis
more C
with t
trying
We're
Emmin~
resto~
Frank
reasor
was jc
to mar
qualit
the li
about
the b~
wetlar
that'~
water
impro%
idea ¢
treatn
inevit
about
becau~
We're
uncom~
for w~
consci
use b
somet
cons¢i
cutti~
and s<
mote
proje
Type
guara
wetlal
wetla~
out t
Heron
respo
did w.
wetla
actua
Commission Meeting
1991 - Page 34
zry and the soil chemistry which are basically the main parameters
mit the kind of vegetation you have. If we can alter that, then the
.ion will respond because different birds, different animals will
;he seed in so we're not worried too much about the seed source.
need to do is work with the chemistry of the basin. Change those
Lone so the seeds that do come in can then respond. For example what
s with the mat of duck weed that covers that basin, it cuts out the
3t from penetrating down to the bottom of the wetland so these other
)sireable species can germinate and as a result of that, we end up
is sterile pool and with monotypic fringe of canary grass. $o we're
a number of things which have been studied from a scientific sense.
~pplying those principles and expecting a positive response.
s: Have you had any experience in attempting this type of
~tion in the past?
~voboda: I guess in terms, this is a fairly new approach and the
I say it's new is because only recently has anyone recognized and it
st mentioned quickly in passing earlier. The idea of using wetlands
~ge storm water quantity has always taken precedence and the water
/ aspect has kind of taken a back seat. If you're following any of
;erature, or I shouldn't say the literature but the news accounts
different writers or different people that are interviewed talk about
nefits of wetlands and quite often they'll say we need to preserve
ds because we can use wetlands to enhance water quality. Well,
only part of the story because if you're using a wetland to improve
quality in a lake, stream or river, obviously if the water quality
es there, it's going to have to deteriorate somewhere else. So the
f, well the recognition that if you use a wetland for water quality
ent purposes, you are going to sacrifice other functions. That is an
able result. People aren't pointing that out. That's only coming
just very recently. And so the reason this hasn't been done is
e people really haven't recognized that this is a problem and so what
saying here is yes. In fact this is a problem. It's not all that
on in urban areas and when you make a decision about using a wetland
ter quality or water quantity treatment, that decision has to be made
ously on the basis of facts and information. So that if we choose to
g wetland for water quality purposes, we're going to sacrifice
ing in the way of wildlife habitat. Now when that decision is made
ously, that's fine. So the response is we're basically on the
g edge here because no one is thinking about wetlands in these terms
it really hasn't, the question hasn't surfaced. Now in terms of a
eneral sense, having done wetland mitigation in the past, there's a
t that I worked on several years ago near Forest Lake where we took a
I sedge meadow and converted that to a Type III wetland. I would
tee I could take anyone from, who didn't know the history of that
d that's a biologist for a public agency. I could take them to that
d and they would not know that that was a modified wetland. I was
ere one spring. There were three species of frogs. ~ Great Blue
Several ducks on that wetland so there was just a tremendous
se in terms of wildlife diversity. The other thing that that project
s not only did it enhance, change the character of that Type II
d. It also provided some surrounding upland habitat as well so we
ly designed a wildlife habitat area. And that project was extremely
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 35
=ul. Successful to the polnt where both people from the DNR and the
Corps Engineers point to that project as one of the classic examples of
what n be done if the job is done correctly. As I said, someone could go
out t 'e and they would not know that that was a wetland that was created.
There no indication that it was ever engineered or anything like that. It
just ks very natural. So in one sense we're doing some pioneering work
here. In another sense, other aspects of this work has been done before.
Emmin~ : Given the wetland, the big wetland. The DNR, what we'~e calling
~l, t condition that it's in today. To get it be what you describe to be
a hea hier wetland. One with more diverse vegetation and so forth, is
that difficult thing? Easy thing? Is the transition from a poor wetland
to a wetland going to take a year or 10 years or 20 years?
Frank
We're
exper
wetia
iimi
tryi
wetl
vol
other
pr
So on
work
out
water
we're
: In some respects it's going to be I would say that what
ng here perhaps is somewhat, I wouldn't say it's entirely
.al but to some extent it's a consequence of how much damage that
has sustained in the past because as I indicated previously, the
parameters are water chemistry and soil chemistry. $o what we're
to do is improve the quality of the water that's entering that
in two ways. Pre-treating the water and also increasing the
Now we've talked to numerous experts at the University and some
mnologists and all indications are that the approach that we're
ng here is in line with the scientific knowledge as it exists today.
basis of what the experts are telling us, we think it's going to
we're not going to know if it's going to work until we actually go
modify the, increase the water level and pre-treat some of the
's going in there. 8ut the best indications are so far that
y sure of success. But again, the wetland business, some
peopl will say it's a science. Certain aspects of it are scientific but
much of this craft so to speak is art rather than science. You apply
princ ,s and then you wait for nature to respond to the application of
those inciples. So there's a good deal of art involved in this as well.
Try a' apply what you know in a creative way and predict a certain
respo
Erhar' : Frank, what's the average depth of that pond now? The Class
pond.
Frank : Well, from what we can tell and the reports we've gotten is
2 ago this basin was completely dry. Although we didn't actually go
out i the center of it, our expectation is it's probably somewhere
betwe, n a foot to 2 feet deep. Probably more in the neighborhood of a foot
to a oct and a half.
Er : Do cattails grow in areas that aren't permanently wet?
Frank ;voboda: Cattails, depending on the species of cattail, they will
grow n areas anywhere from $ inches of water all the way up to water 3
feet .
Er : But if it gets dry they won't grow? Every year it gets dry
they' dead?
Pi
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 36
Frank voboda: Right. Although.
Erhar I guess what I'm saying is, what makes you think that the reason
that ,u only get canary grass is this is a non-permanent water area. If
you t e a field, a filled field like this and dry it out every 3 years or
4 , you're not going to have cattails.
Frank ivoboda: Actually there were cattails in there because when Roger
was on the site he did find the residual remains of cattails along the
frin! and what happened was when the pond dried up a couple of years ago,
then e cattails died back and it was replaced by canary grass. Eventually
that e will repeat itself but the other part of the equation is
hydr . Clearly if you have a drainage area that's small relative to
the and, then you're going to get these fairly severe fluctuations in
water Now by redirecting some of the runoff on the site and attempting to
ca more water, what we'll try to do is kind of reduce the extent of
those uctuations. So where it might dry out now during certain periods
of ti , we might have 6 inches of water in it where in the past it was
compl dry. So we're also doing some work with the hydrological part of
the on and trying to bring more water in there.
Erhar What's going to be the final depth? What's the control structure
you'r going to use there?
Rick ~thre: We're talking about a pipe outlet that would be up probably
about feet higher than the ditch outlet now. I would expect you'd get
the y center there could be water approaching 4 feet I would think.
Erhar Yeah. At the design level, what are the slopes going to be at the
shot ne?
Rick
Or
1.
are
e: On the western edge next to the woodland, next to the
lat driveway I would say the slopes are probably between 3 and 5 to
ng like that. On the eastern side, the eastern shore the slopes
y more like 10 to 1.
Erhar : So in any case, whereas the slopes now of the shoreline is
pr y more like 20 to 30 to 1.
Rick ,hre: They're pretty flat.
Erhar : Pretty flat, yeah. So you'll be able to maintain a pretty
consi shoreline assuming you don't have any leakage at your higher
level
Rick
P
: That's a concern too. The soil is pourous enough in some
where we probably will get some seepage.
Erhar : If you can do that, that will help you a lot in maintaining the
catta and more traditional shoreline just by having a consistent.
Maint. in a consistent water level. One that doesn't move around on you.
Terry ~d: The interesting part of this is because Chanhassen is
y the, of all the municipalities in the metropolitan area,
Planning Commission Meeting
July 17, 1991 - Page 37
Chanhassen probably is more interested in this type of thing than anyone [
can think of. Plymouth is also somewhat interested but Chanhassen appears
to be ~ore on the cutting edge of understanding, or attempting to
understand it. And when for us, when we realized the problems here and
realized that the do nothing approach. If we don't do anything, what I've
been t Jld by Frank and Roger is that that existing wetland, and even the
other smaller ones, will continue to decline in quality just because of
what nan has already done. Because right now it'~ in an uncontrolled
environment for it. If you start controlling the environment, controlling
the anJunt and the flow and the types of runoff that goes into them,
cleansing the runoff that goes into them, that you can attempt to bring
them b sck. So that's become an interesting part of our proposal.
Rick E sthre: Did you want to talk about that...
Frank 5voboda: What we would like to do with the two ponds that we talked
about for wildlife habitat. Typically the ideal wildlife pond has a ratio
of emergent vegetation. Vegetation that grows above the water. The water,
it's s ratio of about 2:1. That is roughly 33~ open water and about 67~
vegetation. The other thing that you try and accomplish is not to have all
the oF sn water in one spot. All the vegetation in another spot. Is to try
and cT sate some variation in the location of that mix of vegetation and
water $o what we're proposing for those two ponds is to create a wetland
that ~as an irregular meandered edge to approximate a natural condition and
then from the upland here and the first several feet of the wetland,
desigring the bottom at a ratio of roughly 10:1 to 20:1 so it's fairly
steep ~ere. Then as you get into the deeper water, this edge being 0 to 18
inches deep. Getting into the deeper water, 18 to 36 inches deep and
makin! the bottom flater. Something like 20:1 to 50:1 here and then in the
middl having pockets of open water that would stay open water permanently.
So hey ) you'd have water preferably 3 feet and deeper. In cross section it
looks like this. Where you have the deep pocket here. Then this kind of
hump ~hich would be the 18 to 36 inch so you get some vegetation maybe
stayirg below the surface or breaking through the surface. So you have a
botton that's irregular and you have an edge that's irregular. That is
typically when you see a natural wetland that was formed by glaciation,
that s the kind of pattern it has. So that's what we're proposing to do
in th, se two wildlife wetlands at the south end of the site. The one which
would be excavated from upland and the second one which would be a
combir ttion of upland excavation and some modification of the. existing
canar' grass wetland. $o this is our concept here and this is, as I
menti, ~ed to you, the wetland at Pioneer Point in Forest Lake. This is the
type cf approach that we used there and it works very well.
Terry -'orbord: Frank, what types of vegetation will be introduced in this
type ¢ F wetland?
Frank
carts
quali'
wetla
There
the h,
Gener~
Svoboda: Well preferably what we like to see in addition to the
are things like pickerel weed and bullrush. Depending on the water
we would like to get some bullrush established. Some of the other
grasses besides canary grass. Wetland herbs like swamp milkweed.
literally hundreds of wetland species and a good healthy wetland,
althier the wetland the more variation you have in the vegetation.
lly a good indication of a wetland that's suffering from something,
Planni
July
be it
you te
little
the tv
water
i f yoL
showir
Erhart
the ct
Frank
this
would
Erhart
have t
Frank
estab]
nUTSGT
feelir
prope¥
a see¢
prope~
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 38
~oor water quality or some sort of problem regarding soil chemistry,
nd to end up with a wetland that's fairly monotypic. Either canary
continuous stand of canary grass or continuous stand of cattails and
else. What we like to do is try and vary that diversity and again
things that we have to work with are the soil chemistry and the
~hemistry because my feeling is if you get those things in balance,
get those things corrected, then these other plants will start
up.
Where are you going to do that? Is that the Class A wetland or
let ones? Is that the one on the west boundary?
~voboda: Okay, it would be these two. It would be this basin plus
~rt of the wetland which is excavated out of upland and then which
~xtend to this part of the existing $2 wetland.
Okay. To get bullrush and swamp milkweed and all that, do you
plant those or will they show up naturally?
Svoboda: There are two schools of thought. In fact there's been
ished nursery business in wetland plants. There's a couple of
les in Wisconsin and there's several nurseries on the east coast. My
g is if you bring the soil chemistry and the water chemistry into
balance, the other species will come in. In many instances there is
bank within the wetland that is lying dormant and it just takes the
conditions in order to invigorate that. In other cases or in
addit~_n to that, ducks travel numerous wetlands and seeds will stick to
their$feathers. Stick to their feet. They'll consume seeds of other
plante
introc
there
that ]
recor¢
here t
belie%
i n the
if we
chemi~.
longe¥
practi
stron~
becaue
And ce
to loc
That 'e
a n
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it st/
prairJ
going
bette~
Emmin!
loose:
and those will be passed in the excrement and the seeds get
~ced into the wetlands. Plus some of the seeds are wind born so
are numerous mechanisms for producing a seed bank. One of the things
sd me to this conclusion was that reading through the historical
s when the land was first settled, we had numerous wetlands around
hat had wild rice present yet we no longer see any wild rice here. I
s if we look at the type of water chemistry that wild rice requires
wild rice beds farther north where the water quality is much better,
looked at the water quality there and compared it to the water
try we have here, we'd understand why we don't have wild rice any
is because of the effect of agriculture and various land use
oes that changed the water chemistry. So that's why I'm such a
believer in getting those two elements back into proper balance
e then the rest of the community, the ecosystem is going to respond.
rtainly I'm not going to tell you that 5 years from now this is going
k the way it was in 1750 because I don't think that's possible.
like saying that you could go out and recreate a native prairie in
icultural field by seeding Big 81ue Stem and Indian Grass and a few
things. Certainly you've re-established the native plant species but
11 isn't the proper mix of all the elements of what the native
e once was. So I'm not going to stand here and tell you that this is
to look like it did in 1700 but what we're trying to do is make it
than it is today.
s: When you're creating these wetlands, I read about how when
trife is introduced to these areas it takes over. How do we know
Pl
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 39
just really just creating a happy home for some loosestrife?
Frank
1
is w
real
there
preve
: There is an element of risk with that, particularly since
ire is established immediately across Lake Lucy Road. What happens
you disturb an area, create an open soil condition, then that's a
mal situation for purple loosestrife to get established. And so
going to have to be some diligence, some care taken initially to
that from being e~tablished there during those first couple of
years hen that soil is raw and exposed.
Emmin! : Will it become any less a problem thereafter?
Frank ,oboda: Once you get a good tight vegetative cover established,
it's apt to invade. The most vulnerable time is when it's first
metro
1
bell
the
r
time.
but certainly there's numerous cattail wetlands around the
itan area that had no disturbance and they're full of purple
ire. $o that's certainly a factor that has to be recognized. I
that there may be a few scattered individual plants that came in on
side of Lake Lucy Road probably as a consequence of the
uction of that road and the exposed soil that was there at the
Terry
have
thin!
bord: Are there any other questions we can answer for you
to the aspects of the PUD proposal other than wetlands or if you
e wetland questions, that's fine but maybe there's some other
that you.
Emmin~ : Well yeah, we've spent a lot of time on this single aspect. I
guess ybody's pretty interested in it. Are there other people here who
have one or comments about, I see other people have come. If you'd
like ask your questions or make your comments, this might be a good time '
to do .
Joe in: My name is Joe Morin and I live directly to the west of this
devel .
Emmin~ : The property neighboring it to the west? Right next to it?
Joe M, in: The next door neighbor is Ted Coey. He has a 20 acre parcel
and I next door to Ted. I have a 5 acre parcel. Basically I have a few
to make about the work that the staff did. This is a difficult
site they're to be commended for the work that they've done up until
now. I think their report is well done and it's sensitive to the
envir nent in the area but I do have six concerns that I'd like to outline
bri in the interest of saving some time. It's getting late and two
with
devel
can
this
·
cons
devel(
strug(
under
s that I'd like staff to look at. My first concern is basically
transition of this type of development into the surrounding
ents. If you look to the south in the Greenwood Shores area you
that the lot sizes are much larger. And if you look to the west of
lopment, the existing homes in that area are higher valued by
le amount than are the value of the homes proposed for this
ment. It's my understanding that part of what you're doing is
lng with developing a PUD ordinance at the same time we're trying to
~and this particular development so the comments that I make are
Plann
July
relat
and a
ing Commission. Meeting
17, i991 - Page 40
i~e to both. What I would like to see is a future kind of ordinance
l so the problems that I see in this proposal. The second concern that
I have is the exiting of this road. There's two major problems with that.
The first of course is the impact of that road on the residents across the
street. It comes out right about at their front door. And the second and
very s~rious concern I have is that it goes right across the top of that
knoll ,here all those beautiful oak trees are. There's a huge beautiful
mature oak tree and also birch and aspen and it's just a gorgeous area.
think that there are some things that can be done to bring that out at a
different location. The third concern that I have is the view from Lake
Lucy ~Jad looking into that high density development. What you're looking
at is the back yards of a whole lot of houses. That's not a real, I don't
that's I think something can be done to mitigate that as well. I
understand there was a problem with that on Lake Riley Hills development
and sc~e work was done to mitigate that concern. I'm not fully
unders ;anding what they're saying about this holding pond. To me it
appear that all of the surrounding homes are draining into that Class A
wetlar and all that fertilizer and stuff going in there is going to make
that a lot worse. There's this tiny little holding pond at the exit of
that Class A wetland that's supposed to protect Lake Lucy and I'm not real
conficsnt that this experimental project is really going to do that. $o
I really feel that with 37 homes on a site that small with that much
wetlard and with Lake Lucy, the headwaters of the chain of lakes downstream
that us need to take a stronger look at that. That Walker pond concept
sounds interesting but it's certainly not doing anything to protect that
Class ~ wetland. I just want to make sure that's understood. Also the
develc :er.
Emmin! s: What do you mean it's not doing anything? I understood them to
say i was going to do something. I wonder what you mean.
3ce Mc rin: Here's what I'm trying to say. You have all these homes here
with f srtilizer on their lawns draining directly into this Class A wetland.
There s nothing stopping that except hopefully there will be some buffering
in th~ re.
Erhart: 3ce, if you don't have it draining in there you won't have the
pond.
3ce Herin: Right. That's what forms the Class A wetland. The reason it's
dead row and has a lot of duck weed in it is because of all the fertilizer
that the farmers put on the cornfield. All that stuff was already there.
All t~at phospherous was in there and what this does is it simply adds more
nutriE it loading into that area. Now as I understand it, maybe I have it
wrong )ut there's a little pond here where this thing is flowing out.
That'.~ the Walker pond proposal.
Emmim,
other
pond
Joe Mc
s: Okay, what I understood is that the water that they collect from
~arts of the site, storm water and so forth will be going through the
nat's going to be built to the east of the wetland.
tin: This one up here?
Emminss: Right. That's what I thought they were talking about.
Pl
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 41
Joe in: ...but none of this other stuff that's flowing in there is
being ,uffered at all.
Emmin! : I understand.
Joe
that
'in: And perhaps the storm sewer coming down here, I don't know is
Walker pond down here?
Rick hre: Let me address this. This one? This is a Walker pond, this
is a lker pond. That's a Walker pond. All of the street runoff would be
d through one of those three before it goes into the Class A
wetla .
Joe in: But you have all of this going through that and then going in.
Emmin~ : No. It's going the other way.
Rick thre: The water's going in through this into there.
Joe
the
in: Well yeah but the proposal is to block the exit to the north so
y way to come out is this way.
Rick
pipe
thre: Well but it won't go through this little basin...a separate
takes it out.
Joe in: What does it drain into?
Rick
there
e: It will come down to this wildlife pond after it's stored in
then it will discharge into this area.
Joe in: These hold the storm sewer runoffs but they don't hold runoffs
from 11 of the surrounding properties and they don't do anything to
Lake Lucy from all the runoff... And even if they did, looking at
the s [e of the relative size of that area and in effect that this is an
exper ntal project, I don't have a lot of confidence in the fact that
that' going to be protected. That's my concern. The other thought I had
is I now that this is well within the guidelines proposed in the
Compr, nsive Plan in terms of density but that isn't really a zoning
requ' nt in that we still need to look at those as guidelines. Areas in
the h h terrain area surrounding the north side of Lake Lucy, the areas
that imarily drain into the Lake I believe should be looked at as larger
lot k~ds of homes than what is being proposed here. Also for all the
other~roperties to the west that haven't been developed yet, including my
own. nd I guess my final concern is what a horrible precedent we're
setti g here. There's 11 variances that are proposed on these lots.
That': something that really troubles me a lot. That's my final concern.
My tw¢ recommendations that I think could be studied. I'm not a civil
engine
be mi
exits
impacl
that
valua
thoug}
er or anything but it looks to me like the impact on this knoll could
igated by coming out through the area where the existing driveway
rather than coming across this knoll and certainly that would have an
on this wetland somewhat. But in terms of the overall environment
his knoll and the trees surrounding it and this area are far more
le than is a tiny section of this wetland area. So one of the
ts might be to redirect this road to follow closer to the wetland
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 42
area then move the homesites to the other side. That would put the
front visible from Lake Lucy Road rather than the back yards and it
would nform to the terrain of the properties I think a lot better. The
other bought I had was in looking at this area here, in order to reduce
the 1 number of variances required, 11 here, perhaps by combining some
of t :e lots. Instead of having two small lots, make them one larger lot
and i :tead of having a road in here, you could service four of these with
a pr' ~te driveway which would bring the homes further from the wetland
area I think would make a more suitable development for this
env' nt with all it's amenities. I think maybe it's not economically
leas Le to put $300,000.00 homes in there today but it was 5 years ago. It
may again 5 years from now so I'd hate to have the economic conditions
at moment in time ruin what could be potentially a very beautiful
area. For all of Chanhassen.
Emmin! : Thanks. Is there anybody else who has comments on this? Okay
Eric. You're a notoriously long speaker. Have you got a list like 3ce
where can just hit us bing, bing, bing?
Eric vkin: I'm also historically improving my, cut down on my. I just
want say I have some concerns. I'm not going to repeat what 3oe has
said. I do agree in spirit to what 3oe has said although the solutions may
not be there. I am concerned about the trees on the northwest
cot of the lot being destroyed. There is a very high knoll there and it
would eally tear into that I think in a wrong way. To add a benefit to
Joe's oposal of moving the street around to where the existing driveway
is, I nk the benefit would be to take the runoff, nutrient rich runoff
from backyards of those things and then it will be intercepted by a
str . Then that would also guarantee that a true nature buffer area
the road and the pond existed rather than have an artificial one
only or 20 feet wide created by a back yard conservation easement. I am
that not all runoff is redirected to be so called cleansed. I
think should be mitigated in some way so that the spirit of this, so
that ' experiment could work. Given a chance to work. I think that
devel lents like this have to move in this direction where water quality
is a front seat to water quantity and so I think it should be mitigated
in way to guarantee that all the runoff is redirected to be cleansed.
And i that means laying it out again, so be it. I'm also as Co-chair of
the ke Lucy Homeowners Association I'm concerned about any water that
enter Lake Lucy watershed. I understand from talking to Terry yesterday
that, ~m I still correct in assuming that this, all the water is now going
to be 'unning into Lake Lucy watershed and not into Christmas Lake
Terry
north
ce
su
conc
Eric
of th
flush
that.
,rd: That's correct. A very small amount of it, if any, runs
this present time. The watershed district boundary is on the
line of Lake Lucy Road so everything north of Lake Lucy Road is
to go north. Everything south is supposed to go south. It's the
ion that it would best be served to run it south.
kin: By deepening the water, increasing the water holding capacity
whole site, and when you have big storms, you're going to have
ng of nutrient rich water going into Lake Lucy. I'm concerned about
What guarantees do we have that the water quality is going to be
Plann
July
impro
guide
levels
some ~
throu:
loomi
harve~
movin~
Limnol
said,
C1
ing Commission Heeting
17, 1991 - Page 43
%~d over what it is now at least and are there any water quality
lines that could be proposed to say okay, we are going after this much
of phospherous or whatever and try to set some clear cut goals and
~ys of meeting them and guaranteeing that they be put in place
h conditions on the plat. Another condition that I saw kind of
2 on the horizon here was what is going to fund the nutrient
ting in those catch basins? In order to prevent phospherous from
down the watershed and ruining wetlands downstream as our
9gist said here, the phospherous has to be removed every so often. He
d he Paul said that the City is responsible for harvesting those?
those basins out every once in a while.
KT
aT
how
mai
the r
poi
that
thi
C~
from
would
mai
use
will
when
cases
have
that
haven
neces:
·
pr
sour
to ge
effor
gener.
It's
Well yeah. We have a number of sedimentation basins existing
the community. They have a service life that varies depending on
:h erosion is getting into it and what not. We have an obligation to
n those things and they're in every subdivision and that's primarily
why we've steered plans to having essentially focused collection
· You know instead of having 8 or 9 small ones around, have 2 or 3
can manage. The fact of the matter is though is most of these
are still relatively new given the timeframe of development of
To the best of our knowledge they haven't failed yet, at least
sedimentation basins. We need to start structuring, and Charles
able to take this one, but we need to start structuring a
nance program for our sedimentation basins. Now we are starting to
se basins in an expanded mode to also improve water quality. We
,ed to maintain them probably more frequently than had been the case
was just for water volume for the water quality aspect. In some
's weed harvesting. In some cases it's sediment removal that will
be done. Certainly going to be coming in and taking out the fines
ave settled out. Otherwise it won't function. Up to this point we
had an active effort to do this because (a) it hasn't been
and (b) we haven't been able to afford it. That's one of the
reasons we got into the surface water utility. We now have a
of revenue that in part is going to be used for the planning effort
our water quality program or our storm water management and wetlands
on track but that's only about a fifth of the funds that we'll be
ting over the next 5 years. The rest of it is for land acquisitions.
maintenance programs. It's for street sweeping. It's for going
in an dredging these things out on a more periodic basis so it is
somet} lng that we're responsible for. It is something that we're getting
up running now so we'll be ready to do that yes.
Eric ivkin: Okay. Well my concern is that the guarantees will be in
place forever basically because that's what you're creating here. Also
with he people that are living there got these basins in their back yards.
Does hat mean a truck from the City is going to be driving through their
lots o clean these basins out at a time when wildlife is trying to
estab ish itself? I mean the timing is important in this. Maybe the
basi ought to be moved closer to the road so people don't feel, and the
wildl)fe aren't going to be encroached on at the same time. It's a
thou~g~t. It's an environmental issue and it's also I'm sure the people
that re going to be living there, it's going to be an issue.
Planni g Commission Meeting
July 1 , 1991 - Page 44
Char Folch: Yeah, typically when we review a development proposal we
take look at how we are going to access these ponds. We normally require
an ;s easement to get to the pond. We try to control the steepness of
the des to get down there. Certainly there is going to be some
distu ,ance when we have a heavy piece of equipment going in there and
doing dredging work and cleaning it out but hopefully with the methods
that 're learning here as far as our revegetating of these wetlands, we
can i ement those same procedures to help restore any disturbance that
occur when we do go in and do maintenance.
Emmin~ : I think tonight and given that it's almost 11:00, what we're
going do here is I'd like to get the concerns folks have out on the
table not to respond to them so everybody gets a chance to say their
peace nd get everything out on the table. Because they're going to be
going >ack to work on it and there will be another public hearing where we
can budget more time for this. $o go ahead Eric.
Eric Lvkin: I didn't expect any answers now. I guess also, is the 20
foot ld easement around the backs of these lots, is that consistent with
the d rsity of vegetation concept or re-establishing wildlife? I don't
need answer but I don't know what the ideal conservation easement is
going ;o be here.
Kr Keep in mind the wetland body itself is going to be protected. I
mean ere's no question of that and we're talking about it as an upland
area )nd the wetland. In the past when we've had a setback, we've had a
75 setback requirement but you could sod basically up to the wetland
and 'va become convinced that whether it's 75 feet, 35 feet or whatever
it is unless we have a fringe of natural growth, we've got a significant
prob because anything that's put on the lawn, any grass that's cut on
the just flushes right into it and the idea is to keep it up there.
Eric ivkin: Right. That's all I have. Thank you very much.
Mark nda: Hi. My name is Mark Sanda and I live just to the west of 3ce
Morin bout a quarter mile or so. I just wanted to state that I agree with
3oe's ints and I feel they're very important. The slide to me that is
the t telling one is the plat map that shows this new development in
relationship to the plat maps of the other developments and it Just is
takint a little bit away from the area. We're trying to shoehorn a few too
many omes into a limited space. A very valuable space and we can't lose
sight of the bigger picture of how close this development is to the shores
of Lale Lucy. Many of you have sat here for many hours as we've debated
our p~oblems with Lake Lucy and the declining water quality there and we
reall have to be mindful of how this development, even though Lake Lucy is
shown as little tiny corner on these maps, is very, very close. It's just
a few hundred yards away. That's basically all I wanted to say.
Emmin~ s: Thank you. Is there anybody else that wants to put anything on
the r, cord here tonight? I think maybe we ought to, I don't know if
anybody else has comments they want to make at this stage of things. I
think we ought to give some direction in terms of whether or not we think
this ught to be done as a PUD as opposed to a straight subdivision,
espec ally in light of the fact that we don't have an ordinance to guide us
Plann
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 45
in th . That doesn't seem to bother Paul, which I guess, I don't know.
Does ~body have any comments they want to make?
Erhar I think you're doing the right thing by raising the water level of
that ,nd. I guess I tend to believe that will do more for wildlife than
any s ,gle thing. I mean ducks just don't breathe in 6 inches of water.
They' rest there and move on so I think increasing the water level there
will ye a dramatic ef{ect on the value of that wetland so I think we're
doing I1 the right things there. We're mitigating, we're moving things
arou because you have to on roads. And the fact is that we're replacing
with 'e and trying to allow people some live there I think is good. I
think etimes we tend to think that when we do subdivisions that somehow
alie are moving in from Mars to live as neighbors but you know these are
peop that are going to live here. It's a growing population and we've
got make room for them in a manner that's consistent. The other people
are a eady there but we try to make, we try to accommodate them the best
way can and I think for that reason we have to, as much as I don't like
to wetlands, sometimes you have to do that to make it sense for people
to homes and enjoy the wetlands like so many of us do now so. I think
it a irs as though we're on the right track here. Interested in I think
it wa 3oe's comment. The idea of putting the road next to the pond like
they ted to do in the old days. You know they put the road next to the
lake id have the houses face the pond. It just sort of hit my curtousity
there I don't think anybody's used that approach for years but I just
wot what the impact of lot prices would be if you were to do that.
Terry bord: Would you like me to respond?
Erhar I don't know. Do you h~ve a quick answer?
Terry rorbord: I have a couple answers for that but if you would like me,
we address them later. If you'd like me to address them now, I'd be
happy do that.
Erhar : I thought it was an interesting question.
Terry >rd: Well there's a number of things. First of all you have to
in today's lifestyles that people have, they don't spend a lot of
time n their front yards. I mean if you think about what you do day in
and d. out by enjoyment of your private property, the majority of that
time spent in the rear yard area with your family or just trying to get
away. Most people don't like to watch the cars go by. At one point in
time
that
if o
easil)
would
stand;
Erbar!
was exciting maybe when the vehicle was the biggest thing around,
something people liked to do. From a design standpoint, I think
was just to go out and look at this property, you can see very
where people would like to enjoy their particular homesites. That
,e looking at the habitat we've already discussed. From an economic
iht, it would prohibit the values of the site just because...
: Well you could only get lots on one side of the street.
Terry Forbord: The think that occurs, see one of the problems is we
entirely on wetlands and what we've done, I mean we've focused on
that ecause we know it's a serious issue in Chanhassen. We've focused on
Plann
July
that
that
do you
down
lng Commission Meeting
17, 1991 - Page 46
little bit tonight. One of the things we all forgot to do here is
)u have to look at the whole equation. Do you want to worry about,
want to grade the site a lot? $o in other words you have to cut
I1 the trees so you can move the dirt different places to put
homesi .es somewhere else so we took not just trees into the equation. He
took r ,t just wetlands. Not just wildlife but we took people who live
there. We took everything into consideration. Now' there were a lot of
very s~od points raised by every speaker tonight. Every single one of them
was taken into consideration into the design. The key is the balancing
act. 4here is the fins line where the ultimate balancing act is so the
optimun is created with the least impact on the entire site. Is it worth
fillir~ a good large portion of a wetland to save one tree? That's the
balancing act we have to do. We've done that over and over agaim.
Erhart Okay. Just the last item. There's one reoccurring theme I hear
here f om Joe and Eric and the other individual here was a great concern
for t~t northwest corner. I think maybe what we need to do in the next
meetirD is, Rick you kind of stated you had a good reason to move it to the
left instead of the right. Maybe what we need to do is have a good
explaration when your final decision for everybody to understand why you
picke¢ that particular site and not get into it tonight. I think that
would De helpful for everybody.
Terry :orbord: Actually we'll address each concern that was raised by all
the i~dividuals tonight and explain in detail why we chose what we did.
8ecaus~ like I say, you have to take the whole equation to understand...
Emmin! ~: What do you think about doin~ it as a PUD as opposed to doing it
as a traight subdivision?
Erhart I think if time permits, that's obviously the way it should be
done ~ )cause you avoid setting the precedent of all the variances. $o if
the developer is willing to do it as a PUD, I think we ought to do it that
way.
Emmin( s: Yeah, and so do I. So ahead.
8atzl : Can you put the overhead back up which shows the development in
the c, ntext of the surrounding development? My general philosophical, two
quest on philosophical questions. One is, it appears to me that there is a
highe' density here obviously than the areas directly surrounding it and it
appeaYs as though some of the problems with setbacks and looking at it as a
PUD is in part because we are shoe homing a lot of things in there.
CompaYed to the surrounding properties. I mean I think they're nice sized
lots but you look at what's around it and they are smaller. I'd like to
I guess see maybe fewer lots put in there personally. The other thing is
addressed to our planning staff and that is, Paul. Has there been any
thought as to how the properties to the west are going to develop and the
effec~ of placing the road that close to the boundary line and would it
make ,ore sense to try and stub something off on the side or has there been
any t ought on that?
Kraus: : In fact there's been a fair bit of thought on that. It hasn't
been ,apped out but the Lundgren proposal was originally, I don't know if
Planning Commission Meeting
July 17, 1991 -- Page 47
it was intended to but they intended to work out an arrangement with the
adjoiring property owner, Coey. 8ring that into the plat and it had some
nice advantages. Unfortunately they weren't able to do that. So we're
left t~ deal with what we can. We have looked at that area to some extent.
For e~Bmple we know that there's no way to provide sewer into this area
without a lift station. The lift station that Lundgren is proposing, we're
havin~, a stub go out to the Coey property so that can be extended along the
lake ~ property owners need it. In my view it's unfortunate for both
properties that the Coey property wasn't brought into this at the same time
becaus~ that's going to be very difficult to develop by itself.
Batzli It's going to be impossible almost from looking at it.
Terry rorbord: May I just address that? Because I think I can answer many
of the questions immediately on that. There's some natural features of
this area that if things were on an ideal situation, would dictate that
some properties be incorporated with other properties. There's 4.8 acres
of the western, excuse me the eastern section of the Coey property that
lends itself to being incorporated with the Ortenblat property. Primarily
because there is a ravine, there's a knoll, there's a wetland and then
there s another wetland. So in actual configuration would go something
like ~is. Down like this and then back down like that and it's about 4, 4
1/2 ac es. Not very large piece of property. It should be incorporated
with this. There's no way you can make a link of a street to fill, to fit
or seYve just those 4 acres. It would bare to be incorporated here and
this etreet would have to be servicing it. We looked at that. The only
way for Mr. Coey in the future, if he ever chooses to develop that part of
his s te, would be to have to cut all the trees down and fill in the ravine
with one kind of a mass grading on that piece of property to connect it
with ~nother road. He told us it didn't make any difference because he
didn't want to develop it anyway which is a right that he certainly has and
so we did research all those different components and met with staff and
tried to see what could be done and actually the best way to serve the
propeYty would be off of Lake Lucy Road at this point in time on the Coey
propeTty. And getting back to the other question, the property is zoned
RSF. It meets the land use guide plan and all the criteria of the existing
comprE ]ensive plan. I believe that RSF zoning classification is a 1.4
dwell ~g units per acre and this is 1.2 so it's almost at the very lowest
densi' y that is allowed in that particular zoning district.
8atzl~ I understand that. I tried to preface that by saying I personally
wouldllike to see that. I understand that it meets criteria and compared
to my~ostage stamp sized lot, these are mammoth but that's another issue.
Paul,lhas any consideration been done? Granted the gentleman who owns the
property to the west doesn't currently want to develop but for example when
we
engine
they
guys
KTaus
do ne ~
at thJ
the ft
e looking at Vineland and some of those other things, we had
ering look at how the heck are we going to service these things if
evelop. Has any thought, has our engineering department or have you
ooked at it? :.
We have. We've done it In house. We haven't gotten it formally
for you and frankly the thought of not connecting up to Lake Lucy
time and leaving a leg to be connected across the Coey property in
ture did occur to us. We didn't pursue it at great length. You know
Pl
July
Commission Meeting
, 1991 - Page 48
if
come
long
could
had your druthers as Mr. Forbord's saying, if the road would have
t over there. We could still force it that way but that's an awful
d end cul-de-sac that would exist lot an indeterminant time. We
k at that a little further if you'd like.
Batzl
site
I don't know. It just seems, I have to go out and look at that
o because I didn't recognize that it'd be that tough to stub
ng out.
Joe in: Can I say something?
Batzl Yeah.
3os
great
would
in: If Ted says he doesn't want to ever develop, that'd be just
th me because I don't want to develop either. So that property
just like it is for the next few years.
Batzl : Well yeah I recognize he doesn't want to do that now but in 20
years he does develop it. Anyway, enough of that.
Terry )ord: I think it would be, we've actually laid out that whole
area. We've done 3 or 4 concepts trying to figure out...as you suggested
and tl topography, if you saw a topography map of the area and then go on
the s it'd be easier to understand why that link between these two
,
can't made. I believe we submitted to the staff, the engineering
depar' nt those layouts so they can see those. I'm sure they'll share them
with Planning Commission at the next meeting so they can understand.
BatzlJ: The question about looking at the back yards from the road I
thoug[t was an interesting one but I think as Lundgren's pointing out, they
reall) , you want to put the back yards around that wetland so that's an
inter( ting observation to kind of make. From Lake Lucy Road what are you
going to be seeing? That's interesting. What does the DNR think of these
experimental ponds? Have you guys had an opportunity to talk to them?
Kraus~: Well let's focus a little bit on the experimental issue a little
bit a maybe Frank could expand on this. We like to think we're on the
cutti g edge of a lot of this stuff and I think we are in terms of we want
to us this stuff in the real world and do this. The concept of these
ponds existed for quite a while. The State Board of Soil and Water
on Service has published a manual on how to do this a couple of
years ago. The Metro Council required that we do these kinds of things as
a er of police as a condition of approval with our Comprehensive Plan.
They squired the same thing of Eden Prairie and everybody else that comes
befor them. It's called 8est Management Practices. We are trying to
break some ground here but we're not, this is not an experimental program
that as a high risk potential that won't work. I mean the science behind
this s pretty clear. The designs of these things are pretty clear. Where
I thi k what Frank was touching on where the art comes in is how you put
toget er all these elements to achieve what you really want to in the
wetla]d. It's clear to anyone that looks at this that we're doing a much
bettel job with this one that has been done in the past. The degree of
effecliveness is something that you have to see so I shy away from the
Planni
July
semant
the ca
Frank
about
The ex
happeF
degrac
intent
qualit
it is
of thJ
and he
descrJ
conceF
adopt¢
desigr
experJ
BatzlJ
range
What
Terry
earli~
somew~
prelin
Emmin~
Terry
Erhar
Terry
know
betwe
Emmin~
Farmal
right'~
Terry
it's
busin
that
with
there
35 hot
constl
Farma
that
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 49
[cs of calling it an experiment. I really don't believe that that's
~voboda: When I spoke about it being experimental I wasn't talking
he water ponds. That concept has been around for quite some time.
~erimental or trial aspect of this is a question of what's going to
when we try to alter the water chemistry of the wetland that's been
)d. That's where the result8 o~: that aren't unclear. Certainly our
is we're trying to take, we know what the condition of the water
of that wetland is today. Even if we improve that 25~ above where
now, we've made some marked progress so that's what the trial aspect
s is. If we improve that water quality 20~, how is the vegetation
~ is the wildlife going to respond? That's the part of what I was
Ding that's a trial aspect. So the storm water ponds, the Walker
t has been around for quite some time. In fact that concept has been
d by the NUR program. National Urban Runoff Program and this pond
is actually incorporated into those standards so that part is not
~ental.
: And one final question if I could for Terry. Can I ask what your
is going to be for the homes in this? Your kind of target range.
ou're thinking right now.
Forbord: That's an excellent question. Sorry I didn't address that
r. The price range of homes in this area in today's dollars would be
ere of about $150,000.00 to $220,000.00-$210,000.00. That's what our
inary estimates are.
That's the home or home and lot?
--orbord: Home and lot.
: What are the lots going to run?
Forbord: The lots, again this is real preliminary because you doo't
ntil you're all done. I wouldn't be surprised they're somewhere
n $40,000.00 and $65,000.00.
s: Thanks.
es: In your development if you sell the lot, you do the development
Forbord: tRight. Lundgren Bros. primarily develops real estate for
wn benefi . Over the years, the 22 years that we've been in
ss, periodically some of the larger scale neighborhood communities
e've developed, we've allowed a few builders that ~e've done business
nd that are friends of ours to come in and build a home here and
This particular neighborhood community is quite small. It's only
es that are for sale and the intent is for Lundgren Bros. to
uct all of the homes in this particular development.
es: There was very little said tonight in regards to the wetland
orders this area up in here. It's a different type of wetland.
Plann
3uly
Basic.
and t~
see mc
Class
discus
and yc
infor,
that j
Terry
on the
Farma
is in
lake?
Terry
Emmin,,
inter,
have t
Farma
other
Emmin,
Farma
respo
that
Terry
Farma
conse
There
than
north
west
topog~
valle
know
right
potenl
range
homes
schem~
to th,
and t~
the e~
for a
being
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 50
lly I believe the wetland picks up a majority of all these lots here
en it goes up into there. The southeast corner of that. I'd like to
re information on that wetland. At least as much as you have on the
A wetland up above where it's marked ~2. The majority of the
sion that we had there was in regards to that wetland. Your property
ur development also borders that lower one. I'd like to hear more
ation in regards to how that would be effected. The type of wetland
t is and so on.
Forbord: Would you like to hear that tonight? The reason we focused
other one is because that one is...
es: I understand that. I was just wondering, I'm assuming that one
)etter shape. That is the last one I believe before it gets into the
--orbord: Frank's more qualified to discuss that than I am.
s: It's just getting too late. I think what he's saying is he's
sted in that and we're going to be asking you about it when we do
he public hearing.
es: I have just a couple more quick things. If we can put that
schematic up.
s: Take whatever time you want. If you want him to answer it now.
es: No. I just want to list it as a question. I don't need a
se right now but I would like to hear more about that. The schematic
ou had up prior to that.
Forbord: This one?
es: Yeah. I guess I don't have any problem that you made a
ted effort to deal with the barriers that you could to the south.
is a large wetland there and a lot of those lots look a lot larger
hey really are in the Greenwood area. Greenwood Shores area. To the
there's the highway there separating the two. I'm concerned to the
nd I'd like to see the proposed plan, the Coey development, that
aphy as it goes west is pretty dramatic. There's a lot of hills and
s and terrain is pretty severe topography. I would like to know, I
hat you're not going to develop the property to the west at least
now with this proposal but I'm concerned about what type of buffers
ially could be there between homes in the $250,000.00 or $210,000.00
that you said or the $150,000.00 to $210,000.00 and the types of
that go to the west. That really hasn't been addressed in these
tics. I'm a little concerned that that housing density goes right up
west there and I think there are some natural buffers to the north
the south. To the west there's the highway the~e. Or excuse me, to
st. So in general I like the fact that it seems like a natural thing
~UD. At least the criteria that we discussed. I support that it's
done that way. But I do have concerns about the density of it in
relat~.onship to how it would work west. And that's it. That's the end of
my comments.
Planning Commission Meeting
July ~7, 1991 - Page 51
Emmin~, 2: I can't tell from looking at the drawings that are in front of us
how mI ~h actual area there is on a lot of these lots. On the Exhibit I,
once y~u get the wetland in there and I assume that the purple line that's
on there is the wetland at the higher level that it's designed to be at
after it's deeper. And then you get the wetland setback area. There's not
a whol~ lot of, it doesn't look like there's a lot of room on the lot and
I'm g¢ing to be interested to see what kind of ground we've got there. I
think it should be done as a PUD. I think you've obviously done a
tremer~ous amount of work trying to put something together that's
appropriate for the area. I don't think I have a problem with the density
but l~ke 3elf mentioned, there's a lot of those lots look real big and of
course they're going to be, there's a lot of wetland area. 8ut I think it
shoul¢ be developed as a PUD. 3ust one other question t have.-There was a
commert made over here that, I don't remember who made it now. Maybe it
was E~ic. But someone said that the problems with the amount of nutrients
that are in that area at this time is a vestige of it's use as an
agrictltural area. Is that right? Can you maybe answer that one quick?
Is thc problem that there were a lot of fertilizers or something on that at
one t~e that's still making that nutrient rich? Is that true?
Frank 5voboda: That certainly, what happens is there's only two ways
nutri~ ~ts can leave a wetland. Either it's flushed out with water when
it's .~ ~spended or else when it's tied up in the vegetation. You come in
and c~t the vegetation and haul it away.
Emmin~s: And if you don't haul that vegetation away, it recycles?
Frank 5voboda: It falls down and dies so. it constantly recycles in the
syste~ and continue to add more nutrients...
Emmin~s: Is there something you can do about that before you put this all
permanently under water?
Frank Svoboda: Well we were somewhat facetiously talking about this the
other day. The suggestion came up to drain it and put corn on it for about
3 or ~ years and don't put any fertilizer on it. Take all the vegetation
off a~d you take all the crop off and basically the consequences is you tie
the n~trients up in the growing material and then you haul it out of there.
~nd t~ey've done this with cattails for example in some instances where
they'%e allowed the cattails to reach a certain stage of nutrient
conce tration and then come in and cut all the cattails off and haul them
away.
Emmin~ s: You said facetiously right?
Frank Svoboda: Well the answer is you're not going to or you can't turn
that ~to a corn field anymore because it's a protected wetland. The
conce is that you do something like that. You raise a crop, whether it's
corn er cattails or whatever. That is really the only way to get rid of
that utrient accumulation. You get it suspended in the water and flush it
out o' tie it up in...and harvest it.
Emmin~, s: So what's your plan then? What are we doing with that?
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Frank
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 52
Svoboda: The third alternative is to add more water with less
nts in it.
s: And then over time the hope or the plan is that that will what?
Svoboda: If you reduce or stabilize the amount of nutrients that
into the system, then over some extended period of time, gradually
level~ will diminish.
s: Alright. And what about it continuing to be fed by back yard
from the use of fertilizers?
Svoboda: That's one of the benefits of the PUD is that you can
increase that setback in the backyards and then you have that strip of
natural vegetation between the cultured lawn and the edge of the wetland.
So that standing vegetation that remains natural would catch, will
intercept any nutrient rich runoff before it gets into the wetland. So by
going to the PUD concept you've accomplished two things. One is that
you've minimally reduced the amount of area that's cultured grass and is
subject to fertilization across the entire subdivision. Secondly, you
would have this natural buffer that will pick up any of the nutrient rich
water and retain the nutrients there in the upland and hold it.
Emmin~. s: What's going in this natural buffer area? Is it trees? Shurbs?
Grass or all three or whatever? Whatever happens to grow there?
Frank Svoboda: Well primarily right now, depending on where they're at,
it's ither trees, variety of species or mostly grown grass.
Emmin.(s: So you're just going to leave what's there? Is that the idea?
Frank Svoboda: Right. And the other thing is, Terry's answer was, if we
raise the water level, we're going to increase or shift that zone of
saturation so now it's canary grass and cattails and grown grass will turn
into canary grass or something else. In terms of I think a couple of
spots we did talk about introducing some other vegetation. One location
was here where we have this curve in this public street and the idea was to
steep(n this slope 2:1. Make it 2:1 slope to minimize what encroachment
there might be into that wetland. Then the other offsetting factor would
be son e habitat landscaping.
Emmin.~ s: I can tell you one thing that's going to be of interest to us is
what ind of, how is that we're going to keep people from pushing their
lawn owers into the conservation area. Is there going to be a siren that
goes cfr when they do that because that's going to happen. It's happened to
us over and over.
Terry Forbord: I'll just touch upon that briefly because that is something
that t he City should deal with. Not just now but also in the future and
we've already dealt with that in a couple of areas. Some of them right
here n Chanhassen and very recent in Trapper's Pass 4th but in another
examp e would be in a neighborhood community that we've recently developed
in Pl' mouth called 8ay Point on Mooney Lake. There's a number of things
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PrepaT
ng Commission Meeting
7, 1991 - Page 53
· Deed restrictions on each lot. Easements that run with the lot
forcement aspects that the municipality has.
I think we've talked from time to time here about having
[ng that marks it on the property. I think that should be there.
reminder to each property owner that what's beyond that point in
,ard isn't just theirs.
orbord: Additionally you know and this was raised at the
Drhood meeting. I haven't shared with you any of the discussion that
sd at that. It was about a 3 1/2 hour meeting. I considered it very
tire. One of the people who live north of Lake Lucy Road in Curry
shared with me afterwards, they said one of the things that was
~ting for them was that there was never any informational packet
to them so they knew what was occurring the day that they bought the
Well in all of our neighborhoods an informational packet is part of
rchase agreement as an exhibit that goes into detail all the
nts that exist on their particular lot. What they can and they can't
Give them the packet and then tell them there's a test at the
=orbord: But that doesn't suggest that maybe we can't do a better
d we're looking at that and we're trying to find ways to accomplish
ry things that you raise Steve so those are good points.
Does anybody got anything else or can we leave?
es moved, Batzli seconded to adJourn the meeting. All voted in favor
e motion carried. The meeting was adJourned at 11:30 p.m..
ted by Paul Krauss
ng Director
ed by Nann Opheim