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1990 07 18CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JULY 18, 1990 Chairman Conrad called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: Tim Erhart, Steve Emmings, Annette Ellson, Ladd Conrad, Brian Batzli, 3im Wildermuth and 3can Ahrens STAFF PRESENT: Paul Krauss, Planning Directo¥l Jo Ann Olsen, Senior Planner; and Sharmin Al-Jarl, Planner One PUBLIC HEARING: INTERIM USE PERMIT FOR CARVER COUNTY PUBLIC WORKS FOR A GRADING PROJECT TO CONSTRUCT AN ACTIVE PLAY AREA IN THE MINNEWASHTA REGIONAL PARK LOCATED ON HWY. 41. Public Present: A1Klingelhutz, Carver County Commissioner Paul Krauss presented the staff report. Chairman Conrad called the public hearing to order. Wildermuth moved, 8atzli seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. 8atzli: My only discussion is that I thought we were going to call it like an earth work permit or something like that. 8ut that was my only comment. Krauss: Well, the actual permit that they will receive is but what they're applying for is the IUP. 8atzli: Okay. Emmings moved, Wildermuth seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of Interim Use Permit #gO-1 as shown on the plans and sub3ect to the following conditions: 1. Approval of Phase I grading permit based on applicant obtaining and complying with the Watershed District Permit. All voted in favor and the motion carried. PUBLIC HEARING: R.J. RYAN COMPANY FOR DEXTER MAGNETIC MATERIALS, PROPERTY ZONED IOP, INDUSTRIAL OFFICE PARK AND LOCATED ON QUATTRO DRIVE: A. REPLAT OF LOTS 5 AND 6, BLOCK l, PARK ONE 3RD ADDITION, INTO ONE LOT. 8. SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR A 20,000 SQUARE FOOT OFFICE/WAREHOUSE FACILITY. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 2 Public Present: .......................................................................................... Address Name ....................................................................................................................................................................... Jack Rogers R.J. Ryan Construct Company Roger Fellows Dexter Magnetic Materials Sharmin AI-3aff presented the staff report. Chairman Conrad calIed the public hearing to order. 3ack Rogers introduced himself as being with R.3. Ryan Construction company and made a comment that couldn't be heard on the tape. Roger Fellows: My namb'"is Roger Fellows. I'm the general manager of Dexter Magnetic Materials and we're a fabricator of...magnets and magnetic materials. We don't actually manufacture. We're more of a machining shop... Conrad: Okay. Yes maam. Resident: We own a lot behind the railroad tracks... My concern is, I don't understand them very well. Are you unloading...or on the side where we're located? 3ack Rogers: No, it wouId be on the... Krauss: The railroad tracks runs thru here. (3ack Rogers and the resident were talking back and forth and their discussion was not audible on the tape.) A1-3aff: We are requesting additional landscaping for the north plus the elevation is higher. Resident: We're quite high except the lots next to us, they drop drastically .... but that's not to say in the wintertime when we lose a lot of the foliage... How about are they going to have 24 hour loading and unloading type thing? Roger Fellows: We would have truck shipments, actually our shipping department closes at 4:00 so primarily... In fact we don't even get a lot of semi's... Resident: Thank you very much. Conrad: And your name 3ust for the record? Resident: Conrad: Thank you. Any other comments? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 3 Mark 7: My name is Mark... I live at 185...probably just 2 houses down from our new neighbors and I have a lot of similar types of concerns because the building that she's referring to that has the big vent'ilation grid on the side of the building, Ver-Sa-Til, whatever they call themselves and on a quiet night you can tell if that building is... We used to keep our windows open at night and now we don't because it's rrr. Relatively constant but I do understand the fact that we need industrial and I can accept that as a businessperson. My concern, first of all I'm curious how far that's going to be from the center line of the railroad tracks. I know there's that, whatever it is that makes the natural thing there but that's not particularly far from the railroad tracks and I'm wondering whether or not the building is like right up to that? It isn't going to be too attractive... In fact it's quite a bit a ways... 3ack Rogers: Here wouId be the back property line with a 30 foot setback. ...so you're about a 100 feet. Conrad: It exceeds what our ordinance requirements wouId say by quite a bit. Mark: As far as the ventilation...The air conditioning units on top of the building are there, if they're not...really cuts it down. I was going to write a letter to Ver-Sa-Til that maybe if they just put just one plank of fencing there it would diffuse the noise up instead of out the way it's going so that was one question. Another question is, I was looking at the north side of that building. It appears that there won't be lighting there and there won't be doors or anything like that which would be acceptable. You know I think that's fine. I'd rather not do doors...lighting that's already quite bright. Is there anyway of knowing that they're not the drawings that will be there are what may actually come to be... Jack Rogers: We're anticipating having 3 windows on the north side of the building... Emmings: What about the lights? Any lights on the north side? 3ack Rogers: There are no lights on the north side of the building. Mark: And you mentioned there were some provisions for some landscaping? You mentioned that? Al-Jarl: Yes...more landscaping to the north. Mark: There's not a whoIe heck of a Iot of natural vegetation there. It's sort of like where their house is and our house is, the vegetation moves farther east, northeast...and then when you come down a little bit, pretty soon there's nothing there so the building will be right there going toward... As long as we pay attention t° lighting and the air conditioning units on top of the building, I think your building may even knock down the noise from the Yer-Sa-Til building... 3ack Rogers made a comment that could not be heard on the tape. Planning Commission Meeting JuIy 18, 1990 - Page 4 Mark: How about, are you going to have equipment outside for dust collection and vacuum cleaning and that type of equipment...? That answers my questions, thank you. Conrad: Thank you. Other comments? Is there a motion to close the public hearing? Erhart moved, Ellson seconded to close the public hearing. All voted, in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing Nas closed. Conrad: Joan, any comments? Ahrens: Well, I noticed a number of things missing out of the plans which I was a little disappointed with. Under Iandscaping... the landscaping was deficient in several areas. Under lighting, approve lighting locations... Signage, there was no signage on the plan. Grading, there's no grading contours are shown on the plan. That's about it. And all of these "are in the conditions I understand from the staff report but it's difficult for me to come to any conclusions about the whole plan. Conrad: Paul, what's your policy on that when there are things missing? Krauss: Sharmin and I were just talking about this. I was out of town when this one came through. I guess had I reviewed these, some of these conditions, all the conditions still would have been there but some of them would have been combined. I know the Planning Commission has a concern with the number of conditions... This plan is basically acceptable. It wasn't the best plan we've ever seen but it's basically acceptable and with the conditions that we've put on there, we think that we can resolve everything. Most of these things are fairly detailed. When we're specifying the size of a valve or something like that, that's fairly detailed and that in no way... We do want more landscaping. We'd like to work that out with the applicant prior to the City Council meeting so everybody sees what we're getting and I think a lot of these things can be resolved before it gets to Council. Ahrens: Will we be seeing this again? Krauss: If you'd like. Conrad: Not unless you table it. Okay, Jim. Wildermuth: Nell I think the staff report pretty well addresses all the land use aspects of the application. Welcome to Chanhassen. Roger Fellows: Thank you much. Wildermuth: I like the front elevation of the building. I guess I just have a few questions regarding the type of operation that you are. What are you going to do about chip disposal of your metal machine operation? Roger Fel lows: I 'm sorry. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, %990 - Page 5 Wildermuth: You're a metal machining operation. What are you going to do about chip disposal? Are you going to be storing chips inside or outside bins? Roger Fellows: Most of our materials are more or less not precious metals but they're material which, we primarily grind so we don't get chips. We get more... b~ildermuth: Grinding... Roger Fellows: Yeah. And we grind with coolants so it comes out as wet and then we pull with a magnetic separater, we pull it out of these coolant tanks and most of those materials we store and we send back to the manufacturers that get recycled because they're materials which have value. $o they're not thrown away. Essentially they are sent back and they're processed. Wildermuth: Water based machine? Roger Fellows: Water based coolants, yes. Wildermuth: How about storage tanks? Roger Fellows: We don't have any. You mean for the coolant itself? Wildermuth: Right. Roger Fellows: We use just floor mounted, they sit on the shop floor tanks. 20 gallons... Wildermuth: For each individual machinery? You don't have a central? Roger Fellows: We don't have a central tank or anythin~ like that. Wildermuth: That's all I have. Conrad: Brian. Batzli: $o you don't do a lot with like the rare earth magnet kind of high tech magnet kind of things? Roger Fellows: Yeah we do. That's exactly what we do. Satzli: Okay, but none of that is, all of that is then recycled and that's done by the... Roger Fellows: Yeah. Because it is a rare earth, or fairly valuable material. Wildermuth: Probably a...metal to begin with. Satzli: $o you don't do a lot with other toxic chemicals or EPA controlled things? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 6 Roger Fellows: No. It's a very clean operation. Batzli: The turn around area at the north of the proposed parking lot, do they end up losing parking stalls by doing that? ~l-Jaff: No... Batzli: Okay. In condition 11, talking about providing the City Engineer with calculations verifying storm sewer design, runoff rate control, that type of thing, I guess I'm less concerned about that now that I know what kind of thing they're doing inside the plant. I was concerned that they might need skimmers or something else if they're going to be getting runoff from storage areas and things. In condition 14 I guess I'd propose that not only do they provide the landscaping on the north portion of the site but also that that's submitted for staff approval. I'd like to see, those are my concerns. I'm glad that you put it in the proposal that we screen people to the north even though they're Eden Prairites and they didn't see fit to move into our community, that's okay. Last, I think I've always tried to include in these things where they're showing expansion sites, a condition or someplace that, something that says that we're not looking at the expansion and it's not approved if we approve this. The subdivision looks fine. Conrad: Annette. Ellson: I agree with the previous comments that they're really lacking a lot of information. We've been really coming down hard on people about please present everything so that we can see the landscape plan. Me can see those types of'things. So I guess I just want to tell staff that I guess I'd like it whenever possible and I hope this kind of thing doesn't repeat. I don't doubt that I could put my trust in you that when they do show you the landscape plan and the grading that I would trust your judgment. I just don't like the idea, like she said, that we don't get a chance to see it and yet we're approving it and they make some sort of assumption that we did see the whole thing and we really haven't so I don't see a problem with, except for that and I will probably approve it knowing that I could trust you but let's not do this all the time okay. Conrad: Steve. Emmings: I think we saw the ghost of Dave Headla right there on his chair over there. That was Dave's pet peeve was incomplete applications. Ahrens: I talked to him. Batzli: If she had asked about special fire department needs. Emmings: I don't have anything to add. The only thing I'd change is very minor on the subdivision request the request. I would say instead of the applicant shall show, I think what you mean is that the plat shall show and then just to make it very clear what you're talking about there, I'd change applicant to plat. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 7 Batzli: The applicant shall amend the plat? Whatever. Emmings: Fine. Anything like that. Just so it's clear what we're talking about. And I like Brian's change on the landscaping too. Erhart: One question Sharmin. When did we start requiring stop signs to be posted on driveway accesses? Al-Jail: Whenever there might be traffic on a busy street we ~recommend that they be posted. Krauss= I've done them on a few other Site plans that you've seen. Erhart: We don't have any down in our industrial park. That's why I was asking. Krauss: No, on the new ones you will see it. Ellson: It's a good idea I think. Krauss: It's just one of those things that's not terribly costly. It's a safety measure. I've worked with engineering departments that take it quite seriously that you just don't want people, especially people who are unfamiliar with the areas. Over the road truckers might need to pull out onto a public right-of-way without coming to a full stop. Ahrens: Where's the stop sign? Krauss: It'd be on their driveway. Ellson: At the end of their driveway so they have to stop. Erhart: Well it's a detail. We don't have to get into it at this point. That was the only thing I had. I agree with Brian's and $teve's minor changes. I support the plan. It looks good. Conrad: I guess I agree with Joan and Annette on the number of recommendations from the staff and it just relates to what's missing. I think the only reason I want to go along with it is it appears that staff's real comfortable with the control of the project and it doesn't seem like the project's out of control but normally I really don't like this many variations and like to see, especially in landscaping. Especially when it abuts a neighborhood. Whether it be Eden Prairie or Chanhassen neighborhood. I really want to make sure that we're buffering the residential community. Al-Jarl: Chairman Conrad, there is more existing landscaping out on the site. I visited the site twice. There is more than what they are indicating on the plans and I did talk to the applicant and they indicated that they are going to preserve all the surrounding landscaping or the existing trees. Conrad: Okay, good. I have no other comments. Is there a motion? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 8 Wildermuth: I move the Planning Commission approve site plan request ~90-6 as shown on the plans dated June 15, 1990 subject to the following conditions 1 thru 18 and incorporating Brian's comments. Conrad: Brian's comments? Wildermuth: Regarding what Brian? Batzli: Submittal of the landscaping for staff approval. 14. I also had an additional one. 19. That the proposed expansion set forth on the plans aren't considered. Conrad: Is there a second? Emmings: Second. Batzli: Do we want to include as a condition that they'll preserve the existing vegetation on the site? Trees? Ellson: Not if their landscape plan compensates for it and maybe even improves it. Conrad: Are there trees we want to preserve there? Krauss: I'm sure there are and what, I just talked to Sharmin about it. What we'd like to do is when we work out with them prior to the City Council meeting where those tree preservation areas are, we'll tailor that condition. Conrad: Parenthetically, have we heard any other complaints about noise from Vet-Sa-Ti 17 Krauss: No. This is the first I've heard of it. Erhart: 0o we have any ordinance? We don't have a noise ordinance. We talked about one but. Krauss: There was one proposed to the City Council last October and November and they decided not to adopt one. Erhart: That could be a potential problem. Emmings: There are State regulations on that though too right? Krauss: They're very loosey goosey and they don't enforce them and nobody else does. It's tough getting them out here. Conrad: If there are ever complaints about noise, I think it's really wise to call City Hall in Chanhassen. We don't know and it's not that we go out and do something immediately but when we do, if we have a history of things occuring, we try to take some action and then again we just need that history. That helps us review problems. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 9 Erhart: I could sure support adding as a standard condition, after some study, a noise level condition on all industrial conditional use permits because it potentially could become a real problem to neighborhoods. Krauss: Ne don't have an overall noise ordinance. You could add that as one of the performance standards for site plan review. Emmings: Yeah, because it might be something where they have a vent on one side of their building and they can just move around the corner to the other side of the building and make a whole lot of difference. Wildermuth: Either that or diYect the venting. Emmings: Yeah, whatever. Erhart: See right now if you've got a problem, the resident really has no place to go since the City doesn't have an ordinance. Now if we had it listed as a conditional use permit, then at least they could go back and hang their hat on something. Wildermuth: You remember what happened with all the noise ordinance activity. Erhart: I know but it's somethin~ we could do on our own as a conditional use... But I'd like to see staff do a little bit of studying what the level ought to be before we do that. 8atzli: Steve, you might know better than I but is something like that considered a nuisance? Under the nuisance ordinance? Emmings: I don't know. I know one case where there was a fan on an elevator. Agricultural elevator and the State came out there, the neighbors across the street and it was running all night and the neighbors across the street complained. The State came out and made them change it right now. Conrad: Paul, it's probably a good subject to look into. Mark: I'm just curious if things progress as I'm sure you hope they will, when might somebody be breaking ground? Yet this year or next year? What is the time table that a person is looking at? 3ack Rogers: We're looking to, we have... Conrad: So this summer sometime you'd like to? There's a motion. It's been seconded. Any more discussion? Wildermuth moved, Emmings seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of Site Plan Request #90-6 as shown on the plans dated June 18, 1990 subject to the following conditions: 1. Provision of trash storage enclosures for all outside trash storage. Planning Commission Meeting 3uly 18, 1990 - Page 10 2. Rooftop screening shall be submitted to staff for approval. 3. Provide one turnaround area at the north of the proposed parking lot. 4. The parking lot drainage shall be modified to implement gutter collection and flow to catch basins on gutter line at the south end of the parking lot. 5. The applicant shall submit a grading plan indicating the existing and proposed contours over the entire site including parking lot and drive areas. Slope stabilization information shall also be provided at all locations where slopes are greater than 3:1. 6. A fire hydrant shall be located at the southeast corner of the proposed building as shown on Attachment ¢2. 7. Fire Department connections are requested as indicated on Attachment ¢2. 8. A Post Indicator Valve (PtV) as indicated on Attachment 9. Driveway entrance grades shall be reduced to 7~ or less and radius cut information must be provided for review and approval by the City Engineer and Fire Department. 10. The width of the westerly entrance, used primarily for trucks shall be increased to 36 feet in width, 11. The applicant's engineer shall provide the City Engineer with calculations verifying storm sewer design and runoff rate control, and water and sewer service design. 12. The applicant shall obtain and comply with conditions of the Watershed District permit. 13. Provide 12 foot wide handicap parking stall. Curb cut may not encroach into stall. 14. Provide for staff approval landscaping on the north portion of the site and sod area. Also, all disturbed areas should be seeded and Type III erosion control blanket installed. The detail should be incorporated into the new grading plan. 15. Financial guarantees for landscaping shall be submitted to the City at the time of building permit application. 16. The applicant shall submit a lighting plan and must demonstrate that there is no more than .5 foot candles of light from fixtures at the properly line. 17. The applicant shall submit signage plans for City approval. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 11 18. The applicant shall comply with the conditions of the conservation easement located on the northerly 20 feet of the property. 19. The proposed expansion area set forth in the plan is not being considered as a part of this approval. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. Conrad: Is there a motion on the subdivision? Erhart: I'll move that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the prelimnary plat request ~90-9 as shown on the plat dated June 18, 1990 rewording this to state that the applicant shall amend the plat to show the typical easements and so on and so on. conrad: Is there a second? Ellson: Second. Batzli: I like the so on and so on part. Erhart moved, Ellson seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of Preliminary Plat Request #90-9 Subdivision, as shown on the plat dated June 18, 1990 subject to the following conditions: 1. The applicant shall amend the plat to show the typical easements 10 foot south (front) and 5 feet on the north, east and west (sides). The applicant shall show the 20 foot wide preservation easement. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. Conrad: This item will go to City Council August 13th? Sound right? Okay. Good. Thank you for coming in. Welcome to Chanhassen. Thank you all for coming in who had some comments on this item. WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT FOR ALTERING/REMOVING VEGETATION IN A CLASS B WETLAND LOCATED IN CURRY FARMS SUBDIVISION, JOYCELYN HUGHES. Public Present: Name Address ....................................................... =.. Steve Kern Rob Royscatel John Guy Doug & Teresa Bearrood 6540 Devonshire Drive 6450 Devonshire Drive 6341 Teton 6490 8retton Nay Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report. Conrad: What's the rationale 3o Ann for the 30~? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 12 Olsen: Well it was just, it preserved the 70~ of the vegetation. Again we were going with how much can be removed and have it still be functional. Conrad: What's the function of this particular wetland? Olsen: Well it's serving as water retention for the subdivision. The vegetation serves as. Conrad: It's a drain? Olsen: It's all connected. Conrad: And where does it drain to? Olsen: I'm not exactly sure which direction it goes. Ultimately it goes into Christmas Lake. I'm not sure which direction. They all end up over in Christmas Lake. So yeah, they definitely clean the water. The vegetation takes a lot of the phospherous and all the fertilizers. It does eventually end up in Christmas Lake and they are planning that this...i-s much better than what it was just... Conrad: Okay, thanks. This is a public hearing. If the applicants would like to say anything. You're welcome to or we'll listen to other comments. Teresa Bearrood: I think she basically said it all for us. Conrad: Okay. Any other comments? Steve Kern: My name is Steve Kern. I live on 6540 Devonshire Drive. I just wanted to put in my thoughts. I hope the approval goes through for the folks. I feel that there would be enough vegetation to do the things necessary that they talked about the wetlands do for the area for our wildlife. The 30~ to 60~ program seems very reasonable and also with all the wetlands in the community and the lakes and things that we have around us, it doesn't seem as tbough...taking advantage of birds or things nesting in some of the grass... There's still plenty of grasslands around for wildlife to live in and someone mentioned maybe safety but I feel that the water can or cannot be as dangerous as weeds in the water or not. Also, most people enjoy the visual appeal of some open water. I think this enhances the Chanhassen area by having some of the areas partly open water instead of fully covered. Conrad: Thank you. Other comments. Rob Royscatel: My name is Rob Royscatel. I live at 6450 Devonshire. My concern is that I don't know if I really agree with the alteration for two reasons. You talked about drainage and as you know, this apparently used to be a stream before this development went in. I live up on like on the right hand side there right as the road comes into the development and behind our house I don't think there's any standing water at all. I guess Z hear talk about open water and I saw the picture that she was taking out to give to you~" I don't know, is there still standing water back there now? Planning Commission Meeting July lB, 1990 - Page 13 Olsen: Are you talking in this area? Rob Royscatel: Yeah. I'm right when the road comes in and bends from that area right in there. olsen: You've got the wetland vegetation. Whether o-r not it's open water in there, I'm not exactly sure. Rob Royscatel: Is there open water now on the areas that you're describing? Olsen: Yes. Rob Royscatel: Because I could understand in a year like this where there might be open water where we have 3 times the natural rainfall. I don't know if it was that was 2 years ago or if it will be that way next year. Again, I don't really see the benefit of having open water and I hear talk about weeds and unsightly weeds. To me cattails and those type of things are not why I bought the land. So my first point is, is there really a drainage problem and what purpose do these things serve and I don't pretend to be a biologist or whatever. A person that would understand it but the way it was to begin with is it was a stream and I don't know if there's pools there now or not but if it needs to be open water, then I can understand that but I would suggest that the weeds would help to keep the water clean and the weeds are not unsightly but I like, that's my own interpretation. The second point I want to' bring out is I've already eluded to and that is that there's a lot of natural beauty in this area. We're not living in Minneapolis. We're living in Chanhassen and that's why I moved out here. If I would like to have my yard back into another yard I would have moved to Minneapolis or somewhere closer to town. What I like about my area is that there's a few weeds, cattails and birds and nature and everything else in the backyard and I don't think there is any water in my backyard. What concerns me is if we make a change here, and you're talking about going into where the water hits or having some open water, what's to say that the neighbors behind my plot of land might just come all the way through and take everything out because there probably isn't any standing water there. Steve Kerns: If there's standing water or not, you can only take out a certain percentage of the vegetation or you pond a wetland area. So they take out let's say 10~ or 20~. That almost limits the surrounding homes from ever taking out anymore so what they do probably limits everyone else from ever... Rob Royscatel: The other thing that concerned me a little is, if you could put the picture up of the proposed alteration. The one that shows the way it is lying currently and where it's proposed and so on. When I look at this picture and I take a look at the total area of what was there and now what's been removed, that's far in excess of 30~. It doesn't take any math major to figure that out. It's more like 50 or more. If you're saying 30~, I see the line being or the vegetation being halfway up from where it is or even more. Just take the total area there and take out 30~. That to Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 14 me is a lot more than 30. Maybe it's to scale, I don't know but in any case what I see as the owner in this case or both owners would like to get it as close to the lot line as they can. I don't know where this 30~-60~ is coming from. Any percent to me is too much. I guess what I'm concerned about is setting precedent. Maybe it Works with this piece of land, I don't know but like I said, behind the property that I own, there isn't standing water so what's to say that you don't have another meeting next month for somebody that would tike to take the whole thing out behind my area and if one of these plots goes all the way across this ravine that's now there, it's going to look kind of goofy. If one does, you might as well do them all and my point to begin with is that I like this area because I don't have two yards coming back to back where I like it with what they'd call unsightly weeds. That to me is nice. I like cattails. like birds. I like nature. Conrad: Thanks for your comments. Other comments. John Guy: John Guy. I live on the conservation easement that goes on top of the hill and I had a chance to see this area tonight. Listening to other comments kind of turned out a couple questions for me. The 30 some rule would make sense to me but there's a couple questions I'd like to ask staff. As tong as it's saying that they can go to a certain line. 6Jhat I'd feel uncomfortable with is if they can in fact go into the pond itself and clean it up. I'm not a naturalist but it seems to me like that could in fact damage it. As we're standing in the backyard this evening, I saw a couple of birds that I didn't recognize. I know there's two red and blackbird nests right through that area and I would hate to think that we could make some alterations to that area and damage some of those habitats. A question for staff. How...live around an area, does fertilizer cause concern for the...preservation or anything like that and can we in fact do something to attack that? Olsen: The best protection is keeping all the vegetation that you can. The wetland vegetation. 3ohn Guy: In the wetland. BUt if we put a finished lot right up to the edge of the pond is that what I understand? Olsen: Right. Again, we prefer to keep them all natural completely around and even with the Council we were given direction to work out a compromise. And so that's where we came up with. 3ohn Guy: And that's because of the encroachment of the people on the other side... That's taking advantage of the situation. Krauss: There's some truth to that but there's more to it than that. One of the things we're dealing with is we don't have an official map that shows where wetlands are and some of those folks, we do have a map that shows where some of the larger ones are and some of those folks actually contacted the City and saw that map and assumed they were on safe ground and unfortunately they're not because our wetlands ordinance has a much wider definition of what a wetland is. We're taking a number of measures to hopefully do a more comprehensive study of our wetlands in the next year Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 15 so that we do have a comprehensive map. We'd like to update our ordinances so they're better, more current and use better techniques and judge the quality of wetlands. We're trying to develop ways of putting home buyers on better notice. A lot of these folks when they got their survey, it doesn't say wetland back there. It just says drainage easement. Now l know it's a wetland because I know what we approved on the plat but they didn't know so I think honestly there was a sincere breakdown of communication there and yes, some people did build without permission. That's true but a lot of people really didn't understand what they were doing. It's not a situation we like and we don't want this to set a precedent for other ones where we've been able to hold the line but given everything that's happened here, it was felt that some sort of a compromise is reasonable. We felt that we should work our a compromise, we brought in folks from DNR and Fish and Wildlife to say what can we reasonably work with. What can we do that would least damage the integrity of the wetland and that's where that 30~ guideline came up. · John Guy: Is it 30~ of the perimeter of the whole area? Olsen: It's 30~ of the perimeter. We would prefer that it's kind of throughout. That they have vegetation. Some open area of vegetation. What happened with this case is that almost over half or'about half the perimeter is park which will always remain. Emmings: He's asking how deep is the perimeter and I have the same question. What does perimeter mean? Olsen: Oh. Around. Emmings: I know it means around but how deep? How far? Olsen: That's where the 60~ and say you have vegetation completely around and you can go 30~ of that and then, what we're saying is that you could maybe say...like lO0 feet across and you could go in 30, however it came out so you had 60~ open water. If we remove vegetation so you have, so there's 60~ open surface water. That is so, what you do is you kind of get the surface area and then how far you can go in. John Guy: When you figure, how far in is the water? Olsen: Right now it's pretty much all cattails in the open water. The water, the ordinary high water mark. Rob Royscatel: The water is right above that line. Olsen: Yeah, it's ail the way around. Rob Royscatel: There's a retaining wail'where those solid lines are. John Guy: ...how iow that water typically is? I mean this year is so unusual. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 16 Olsen: ...surveyed the ordinary high water mark...and that's where the water is and they do have outlets... I think it eventually goes to Christmas Lake. Rob Royscatel: Would you repeat that? You said the drainage tiles are set up... Olsen: There's an outlet so the water will only get to a certain level before the water starts going out. John Guy: Well this sounds like a political issue with the City Council but the issue of compromising because someone else made a mistake. Ne should be working to reclaim the wetland areas. Not drain them out. I don't have a problem if the experts say that this won't affect and endanger this wetland area. This homeowner should be allowed to do something to help finish their backyards but if it endangers the wetland area, just because somebody else made a mistake, I'd have an objection to that. I don't know who my City Council is. I moved here in March so maybe I need to make a call to my politician. Conrad: The Mayor's in listening to you right now. Any other comments? Steve Kerns: I just want to say that in this flyer that they handed out to some of the residents, where it talks about what fill could take place and what couldn't, it's pretty specific about but only when it will not have a negative adverse affect upon the ecological characteristics of the wetland. It goes on to 5 different points. It's kind of showing the ordinance and things set up within your ordinance so that things like maybe some rock that's not going to harm anything. Things still drain and maybe just remove some weeds. ~4e understand the concern about fertilizer being up close but again am I to understand they're only able to remove vegetation within their property line? Conrad: That would be the case. Steve Kerns: So it's still... John Guy: But that property line goes deep within that pond. In fact it may go all the way through it. Olsen: Yeah, this shows the property line. 3ohn Guy: And that shaded area is in fact the pond. Olsen: That's where the ordinary high water mark is. Rob Royscatel: ...the opposing property line on the other side comes all the way until it gets to our property line and there's a very large section that is wetlands. I guess I'm concerned that they could come all the way up the side. Olsen: With the wetland vegetation. Pianning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 17 Rob Royscatel: Maybe not now with the 30~...but you're saying 60~ can be cleared? Olsen: The area that he's describing is another issue too where that was not wetland to begin with and now it is. It's taken on the qualities of a wetland with the drainage. With the new development and that's a whole other issue. We have to adjust at some time now do we apply those same rules. Steve Kerns: Do we have any idea how many people are aware of were aware when they purchased the land that certain areas were wetland? Olsen: I don't have the exact number. I've talked with people who were not aware and I've also talked with people who were aware. Rob Royscatel: Ail I can speak of is from my personal experience and when I was about to purchase this piece of property, it was made very clear to me that the entire back area as well as these other two that we're describing now are wetlands and will be forever protected. And I was even told about someone who already received a fine for pulling a few cattails and that to me indicated yeah, it's going to be enforced. It's in place and obviously they do advise when they broke the law they got fined. Again, I can't speak for anyone else that purchased land in this area but it was made very clear to me that this was an ordinance in effect and it would be enforced. Emmings: Who told you that? Rob Royscatel: The seller for Curry Farms. John Guy: Well I second that. I thought it was very clearly to me. I didn't have an attorney to review everything so I'm not sure if there's some legal document that in force enforces this but it was clearly communicated and all the plats the developer gave us marked out clearly where this area was and conservation easement..~. There's no ambiguity in my mind. Maybe 2 years ago when they started, maybe there was. Conrad: Do wetlands get recorded against a parcel or a plat? Olsen: Right. Conrad: They do but they only do when we've got them officially mapped? Or how do you take the developer's subdivision? I don't understand the process of recording. Olsen: Well, Curry Farms kind of, this one it wasn't recorded against each of the lots and why it wasn't, I don't know the answer to that. Conrad: Who's job is it to do that? olsen: Hell, it's in, plan'ning's partly responsible. He tell what's to be recorded and a lot of times it's just a process. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 18 Emmings: But now we've got a new system. This would not happen today. Olsen: No. Now we specifically do it against each lot. We even have a conservation easement. We have conditions. I mean as each subdivision goes through, we add more as we learn from past mistakes and Curry Farms unfortunately was one of the first ones to really, where we really converted wetlands into storm water ponds that were going to be backyards and we made some mistakes. We really protected the larger Class A wetland and then we had that, an easement over the other ones with that condition that they could not be altered but I don't know. conrad: Still a public hearing. Any other comments? Doug Bearrood: I 'm Doug Bearrood and I 'm the owner of one of the lots with the wetland. I'd just like to say we bought our lot...we bought in 1988 which...and when we bought it was open water. There were no cattails. Nothing and we know that, we never heard from the seller that this was a wetland or that this was something that we couldn't alter and we haven't... change either. All of a sudden in 2 years it's drastically changed and now we're basically on a marsh which isn't so bad. We do like the birds and stuff but it's not like when we purchased the tot, that wasn't what we saw. That's not what we"re getting now. Conrad: I know what you're saying. Teresa Berrood: I'm Teresa Berrood and I again have that same lot. What we want to do with it is not remove every single cattail. All we want to do is clear it out somewhat so we can at least see the water. Last summer we had a family of ducks that...the cattails and we would just like to remove some of them. Like I said, we wanted to remove what was allowable. The 30~. We have planned already. We have sod going down to about 4 feet from the start of the cattails and we want to put wildflowers, some kind of ground cover down there. I mean I don't want to see my fertilizer run off into the pond and then into Christmas Lake either but all we wanted to do was clean it up some. I don't want to go through the work of making it look like when we purchased it but we just want it cleaned up a little bit so we don't look at it and say nice swamp. I mean it was a pond when we bought it and that's the way we want it. We're going to follow guidelines. I mean I guess I real'ly feel like we have sat here and waited for quite a while and have been very patient and not gone down and ripped other things out like some of the other residents in Curry Farms have because we filled out our forms. Filled out our applications and we're trying to follow the rules and if Fish and Wildlife wants us to do something, that's what we'll do and if they're recommending 30~, that's what Council should approve. Conrad: Thank you. Any other comments? Is there a motion to close the public hearing? Batzli moved, Erhart seconded to close the public hearing. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing Nas closed. Erhart: The people that removed the material before, what are we talking about here? Removing. Is that mowing? Is that poison? Are you talking Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 19 about using a backhoe? Olsen: I'm not exactly sure how they did it. They did it though and it's now, there's sod and stone around it. I don't know. Steve Kerns: I just want to say that over by my, the wetland on my property, the bulldozer that graded our lot backed up into the wetland and dug it out while that vegetation was... That's where that little piece is moved here. And then we were told that we could sod over the grading which was about 15 feet under the protected wetland edge. So I 'm just saying too that part of that took place just by the fact that it was not controlled by the person grading the lot. It wasn't a controlled situation. Erhart: Okay. My point is, I mean if this is wet. The soils are wet here and if they haven't gone in and changed the elevation, the only way they're going to keep the cattails from growing back in there, they're going to have to continue to mow it unless they put so many rocks and plastic or something. Is there a line involved here and can you walk out to those lots that have been altered and say this is the line that you can't go beyond? Is there a line someplace on some drawing? Olsen: Well we went out and surveyed where the ordinary high water mark was and yes you can see where some of the lots have filled below that and have sodded or put in a few stones. Erhart: Okay, what are we talking? What's the law here? The ordinary high water mark or is there an easement line someplace that didn't get recorded? 01sen: There's an easement that, I do.n't know if you can see it but the dotted line, that's the easement. This is an easement line. Erhart: What does that easement mean? Olsen: That's what went over the ordinary, the ponding area and where there's going to be possibly over? Erhart: Anything beyond that line they're not supposed to mow? Krauss: No, it's where the expected flood elevation of that pond is as described by a straight line that a surveyor shows so it doesn't exactly follow the Contour. Erhart: What does the easement say? What does it say? I can't do what within there? Krauss: You can't fill down there. You can't build down there. Erhart: But you can mo~ down there? Krauss: Yep. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 20 Erhart: Alright so they can mow and they could put rocks in so then what, then we're down to the ordinary high water mark. Then that is the line that says you can't mow beyond that and put in rock? Olsen: Where the wetland vegetation. Krauss: The wetland contour. Erhart: That has never been intended to be on an easement or recorded against the lot. Krauss: Well that's what we want to do now. Erhart: We do that now in other areas? mark against. We record the ordinary high water Olsen: We record an elevation. Erhart: Can we do that now on these lots? Krauss: We have no authority to go back in and do that. Olsen: You do that when they're platted. 8atzli: Sure you do. It'd just be a taking. Olsen: Well yeah. Krauss: You can do it as a condition of... Erhart: What are you trying to do now? Are you intending to go in and to maintain this, keep cattails from growing again? Do you plan on mowing that area or how do you plan on doing that? They're going to come back if you don't keep hacking. What you're saying is you're proposing to keep hacking below the ordinary high water mark and that's what the Fish and Wildlife is saying is that's okay? Is that? Krauss: They're not saying it's a wonderful idea. They're saying if you were going to work out a compromise, here's how to do it. Erhart: But I tend to agree with the other two arguments here. The way it sounds to me. If there's clearly a line that we can say that's the ordinary high water mark. If you can go out there and survey off on those lots and if by exception is the only way that they will maintain mowing, then what you ought to just say hey, you can't touch anything below that and alright so you mowed it now but it's going to grow back. Let it grow back and call it, that's it. The intent was that anything below the ordinary high water' mark was supposed to be left in it's natural condition and even though it was disturbed, you now have to allow it to grow back in it's natural condition. To me that seems too simple. Maybe I'm missing something here but it seems compared against all the work that you've done on this, it seems like a simple solution. What am I missing? I don't know. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 21 Ellson: The fact that they got direction from Council to try to do this thing. Erhart: No, they already did it. Conrad: No, these people haven't. Another group already did. These folks are trying to work through the process. Erhart: I understand but I'm talking about the first two people that went in and did it. They didn't get any direction and it seems to me that if they basically are told okay, you did it but now you can't go maintain it, that eventually most of it will just grow back to cattails. Isn't that what will happen? $o then why don't we just say you can't touch it anymore? Krauss: Well you could but that wouldn't achieve their goals. Erhart: I know what their goaIs are but you've also got two peopIe here that they object and quite frankly when you go in and develop a neighborhood, if they wanted to make this thing into an open pond, they should have dug it deeper. Essentially any water that you've got that's less than 3 feet deep will grow, it's just going to happen and somebody, whoever designed the neighborhood should have made a decision at that time. You either make these ponds 5 feet deep or not and then to go back and do it now would take the collective agreement of everybody that's got ladd on that pond as opposed to trying to do it one at a..time:. It doesn't make sense to try to do this one at a time. If they want a pond, I'm not against a pond. But then it should take everybody collectively ought to get together and say let's all build a pond and I'm okay with that too. Krauss: I guess that's sort of the way we've been trying to handle this. the one that you're not reviewing tonight. The one where there was a lot of disruption, what they're trying to do and Jo Ann can correct me if I'm wrong, is get their act together because it's probably about 15 homeowners there. I would guess 7 or 8 of which have already altered the thing and we've told them they've all got to come to some understanding as to where the open water's going to be. How it's going to be maintained. Who's going to get the shoreline. Creating open water in a Class B wetland is often advantageous and in principle something we've allowed before because it allows better habitat value. We're kind of backing into that I guess with this. Erhart: They're not creating open water here from what I understand. What they're doing is you're mowing down cattails. Doug Bearrood: We're creating open water for us to see. Erhart: You're cutting down a visual barrier. Conrad: They're also creating open water, Erhart: How are you going to do that? You'd have to mow under water. don't understand how you're creating open water. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 22 Doug Bearrood: When you pull the cattails out. Erhart: They'll grow right back unless you continue to do that. Doug Bearrood: I understand how the argument goes. From our side, it seems a little unfair that the Curry Farms developer didn't tell us the situation. When we saw the lot and bought it, our first home, that's what we expected to have back there and it changed, on us. Conrad: We understand that. We know where you're coming from. Erhart: I understand that but it certainly makes sense to me, if I had a lot, I'd try to get all the neighbors together and get a plan that we all decided to do and pay for it and get it done. Teresa Bearrood: Ali the neighbors... I mean the other two neighbors that are basically affected by this...2 up on that drawing, they have decided to do nothing. Thew don't want anything done and 6 on the drawing also, they have decided to do nothing. It's just 4 and 5. The Hughes and us that want to do anything so it kind of has, I mean that pond, all 5 families have decided what they want to do and we're the odes that wanted to use... Conrad: Just as a footnote and you knew I'd have to jump in on this one sooner or later but Chanhassen spent a lot of time trying to protect wetlands. We put in our own wetland ordinance. We probably spent 3 years of about 7 people's time trying to figure out how to preserve Class 8 wetlands. How to improve them. How to maintain them so a lot of energy and we as a Planning Commission probably spend 2 hours every 2 weeks reviewing permits just like yours. A lot of people were deceived in terms of what they thought they were buying. A lot of people have monetary motivation. What our studies did and all the folks that came in and talked to us and we got expert testimony from what we perceived to be the real experts and those wetlands did a lot of things for Chanhassen. It created a whole lot of things which we're trying to preserve so, add water quality was one of those things. And wetlands, as ~you start taking out cattails, cattails are probably one of the best vegetative bodies to clear out pollution. Grass does nothing. Grass is literally nothing in the way of pollution. A cattails has a lot of fiber. It really captures pollution and all the fertilizers we put in so we've spent a whole lot of time trying to figure out how to maintain quality when we have all this development coming into Chanhassen and so, in a 2 minute summary and I don't want to get too far into it, that's what we're playing with. Every 2 weeks we are playing the role of trying to preserve and manage wetlands and within the light of our ordinance without setting precedence. Without saying hey, if they can do it, well then as soon as you break an ordinance and then you basically don't have an ordinance anymore because it can be contested. The second you have an exception to it, then the next party can say well, you've allowed an exception. Therefore you no lodger have that rule unless it was a unique situation. So I wanted to just give you that background. That's where we're coming from. A whole lot of background in Chanhassen but Tim, go on. Planning Commission Meeting Juiy 18, 1990 - Page 23 Erhart: Yeah, I've got one other thing. The people that are objecting to this, are you objecting to this particular thing specifically or are you objecting to the concept of doing this? Rob Royscatel: PersonalIy this particular location does not affect our land at all. I'm objecting to the concept. Erhart: Okay, and you're not talking about this particular pond? You're talking about. 3ohn Guy: I share that whole conservation area with these owners. I'm 6341 Teton on top of the hill but in general I share the general area. I'm not on that pond. Ahrens: It's on the park right? John Guy: Right. Erhart: Again, I am not against improving wetlands but it seems to me that we were going against this if we're setting up a situation where continually year after year go in and disturb what we have set aside as a wetland. That's I guess the problem I'm having with it. I have no problem in getting rid of some of the cattails and open water. I think that could be an improvement. Krauss: Fundamentally the right way to do that is the way that it's normally done is that when it freezes over you go in there with a backhoe. You dig a hole 5 feet deep. Erhart: Right, so go ahead Steve. Emmings: It's hard to know where to start. Really what you're proposing here to me flies in the face of everything we've been doing and I think this is kind of what Ladd said. Maybe I'm just repeating what he said but this is a wetland. Our policy does not allow alteration of wetlands. It never has. We've made people that have altered wetlands go back and take those alterations out. We just got done doing that on Lotus Lake. Putting in a garden in a wetland is not improving the wetland. I've never heard of that kind of a proposal before. It sounds nice. I've got nothing against gardens. I have one myself but doing it in a wetland is just, that is not an improvement to a wetland. Now, moving on a little bit. Erhart: Can I clarify one thing? We do allow improvements. Conrad: We do aIlow improvements. Yeah. Emmings: And like Tim said, if this was a plan where over in this other block here where you've got a wetland completely surrounded by private property owners and they came in and said this looks this way now and we want to create some open water over here and have some natural areas over here and dig this thing up and we're all in agreement with this plan and what was deemed to be an improvement to that wetland by the Fish and Wildlife Service and stuff, I'd be all for it. Just narrowing down to this Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 24 one a little bit more, even if you were going to apply the 70-30 rule, it would seem to me that no individual landowner ought to get to do more than 30~ on his individual lot. These two ate exhausting the capacity to do 30~ of the perimeter almost on their two lots and that's not right because then you're taking, number one you're taking away the potential for other property owners to do it. Whether half of it's in park or not I think is irrelevant because they may want to sometime in the future and they won't be able to. Number two, it keeps the amount that you alter down to a minimum so I can see that you would want to clear out to be able to see to water. That has some appeal and makes some sense. If Fish and Wildlife says that you can remove 30~ of the perimeter, although I'm really unclear about how this formula .works with area and stuff. That is not at all obvious to me anyway but if by clearing 3 feet of cattails on 30~ of my frontage gives me a view of the open water, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me as long as Fish and Wildlife says that that's not detrimental to the wetland. But, going all the way back, our policy's always been no alteration and I don't see any reason to change it. Conrad: No alteration unless improvement. Emmings: Unless it's an improvement. And this is not an improvement in the sense that we've always used that word. Batzli: Really but if in fact they were, improvement might be a little bit misleading. It's kind of no net loss. I mean if they were going to improve a portion or add wetlands someplace else, you might allow them to do this. Emmings: Yeah, we've done that. 8atzli: Yeah. Emmings: And then the other thing is, I don't know why we can't go back and record the fact. Why can't we go back and record this against these properties so that at least the person that buys from these folks has some notice that this is something that was on the plat? I don't know why we can't do that. Krauss: Well I'll defer it to the attorneys amongst us but we've had problems recording things because the owners change hands and we don't have the right to record something against somebody's property. Ahrens: No, you can't do it. Emmings: You can't do it? Ahrens: No. Ellson: Not even a little note in the file? Ahrens: Unless the City is willing to go in and take some court action. First of all it's all registered land. It's all torrenced land which means that you have to go in a proceedings subsequent and ask the court to make a Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 25 determination to allow or a decision to allow you to record documents involuntarily against people's land. The courts are somewhat relunctant to do that understandably. I mean otherwise we could all face that situation so no, they won't let you do that. As a matter of fact, Curry Farms not only forgot to record the easemepts but they didn't record any of the Covenants and Restrictions against the land and on they're on the phone begging people to turn over their Certificates of Title so they can do that. Of course a lot of people said no. Emmings: Well what recourse do we have against a developer who doesn't do what he's supposed to do? Ellson: Slap on the wrist. Olsen: It's getting kind of late. Again too you know we always have the development contract or we can withhold building permits. Emmings: Does he own more land in this town that he wants to develop? Well he's got gigantic developments here but I was just wondering if he has any more land because if he comes in again I sure want to talk to him. Olsen: ...should go through, yes we can record. Emmings: Why do we leave this to the developer? From now on will the City be taking care of that? Krauss: Steve, that was one of my original questions here and when I came on, when I started talking to Roger, our City Attorney, and he's got a proposal for his office to handle the recording of all plats and easements which I'm pretty sure we're going to go with. Emmings: Yeah. I can't vote for this. Conrad: Anything else Steve? Emmings: No. Conrad: Annette. Ellson: I can't either. I can't agree at all to compromise our wetland ordinance. It's a terribly dangerous precedence. I can understand the position that the City Council must have been in to try to compromise to make people happy but I think it's way too important. Like you said, we just told people who had loosestrife which is 10 times worse than a cattail out there, that they had to build a board to get out onto their lake frontage. It's not unusual for somebody to move in next to a lake"~and a year later it looks different than it did before and it's all part of being next to nature. I don't think the argument of I didn't know can necessarily be used and then say it's okay. Then if you don't know, you're okay but if you do know, because the argument, you're going to start advising people to just claim you don't know and you'll be able to get a slap on the wrist and take off or something like that so I think it's a nature conservation measure. If you polled the city, everybody would want Planning Commission Meeting July 18, i990 - Page 26 it. It's like Ladd said', we're developing so big. One of the things we want to preserve is water quality and this is the strongest thing we can do to try to do that and I think the City Council could reconsider of thinking of a compromise or something because it's too dangerous. I can't imagine somebody coming back later and not using it as a precedence. So I'd say absolutely not. Batzli: I have very little additional to add from the proceeding two comments. I think if they were going to improve the wetland I'd be willing to look at it. I also, I couldn't approve it with these conditions because I don't understand the perimeter concept along with Steve and I think it's too ambiguous to approve with the current conditions. Conrad: Jim? Wildermuth: I have almost nothing to add except to say that I'm just amazed that Fish and Wildlife was willing to compromise. I think that's pretty surprising. One recommendation I guess I would have would be to the residents around this thing, would be to come in possibly with a plan to raise the level if they want open water. To raise the level of the~water in the wetland. That might be a possibility. Erhart: Raise the outlet level? Wildermuth: Right. Erhart: Yeah. John Guy: ...where it drains to but I currently have a water problem in my backyard. Raising the level may or may not affect that. I don't know. Wildermuth: Well I think that would be something that would have to be looked at by all the agencies involved including the City Engineer. Krauss: What you typically do though to achieve open water is you excavate out below the existing floor of the wetland. That has no bearing at all on the hydraulics of the pond because the outlet's still the same but what it does is the material just can't root there. Erhart: What controls the leve of this? Didn't you say it was a culvert? Krauss: There's an outlet. Erhart: A culvert or what? Who set, is there any reason why you couldn't raise that culvert 3 feet? Krauss: Well right now it would be very difficult to raise it because it comes out underneath streets and you've got to move the whole thing. Erhart: You can turn them. Put a riser in the end. Krauss: Yes you can but then you start... Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 27 Wildermuth: Either way. Whether you raise the level or you excavate it out the material, you're creating open water. Conrad: Joan? Ahrens: Well I have very few comments. Very little to add after the good comments that have been made but I live in Curry Farms and I live on a wetland. I was told when I moved into the property that we lived on a wetland and I know that everyone else that lives, there's about 9 houses who live on the wetland I live on and there's been absolutely no alteration except for one homeowner who's dumped a truckload of rocks onto his backyard to try to improve, I don't know if he thinks it's improving the wetland but he's trying to get the weeds down. The weeds have grown up through the plastic and through the rocks and it looks pretty terrible. I think that because the City made a mistake or maybe made a mistake is no reason for us to continue in our wayward ways. I think that's a pretty ridiculous reasoning. Certainly parents wouldn't allow that with their children. I don't know why we should allo~; that either. I can't go along with the staff recommendation at all. I don't think a political compromise is appropriate and that's all I have to say. Conrad: Okay, thanks Joan. I'd just like to thank the Hughes' for coming in. I know it's frustrating to hear us talk like this and you're probably a little bit irritated with what we're saying. Are you the Bearrood's? Doug 8earrood: Yes. Conrad: I'm sorry. I can pronounce Hughes. I can't pronounce your last name. That's why, okay. 8ut again, I thank you for coming in. Again, we really do appreciate folks that try to work with the system. Typically we can work. Typically in the long run things happen for the best and you may not see it tonight but again, before I make my comments I just wanted to thank you. Sometimes we don't have people that try to work with us like you are. I'm a little bit concerned about the precedent that we'd set in this particular case. I don't know how we'd back off of the precedent. I don't understand the 30-60 rule. That seems real foggy to me. I think we should try to improve the wetland. Z think the bottom line is, if you can get your neighbors to work with you to try to improve. This seems like a piecemeal approach to something and maybe that's the way we steered you. Sometimes we steer you because you have the wetland alteration. Because you asked for something, staff's going to steer you to say well you can come in and do something and we kind of steer you in one direction and maybe we should have been saying hey. Try to get all the residents that border that wetland together and maybe there's one general approach that worked for all of you. That may not work because there are people that do appreciate wetlands and the cattails and therefore it's a little bit harder to get a consensus of a group and it forces you to communicate with your neighbors and maybe sink some money into it but in my mind I would have, I haven't seen the right solution today for this problem. I really do have a feeling about a precedent that we'd set and I think it's just wise to, well on my part, I will vote against this. I think the City Council has some other, they have directed staff to review this positively and I think that we are going to, it sounds pretty much to me we're going to be in consensus Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 28 here on not accepting it but I think the City Council has a different perspective on this. At least they directed staff a different way so l think you're going to want to hear what the City Council says in this regard but in my mind I haven't been persuaded that we have the reasons or the method to alter this particular wetland at this time. If we do and we have done that quite a few times, we can always improve the quality of the water. We can always improve the habitat and many times we can improve the filtration capabilities if we try to improve it in a certain way. I don't think what I've seen today is that way. Any other comments? Emmings: Just one. You know if the City feels that it owes these people something because of some role of the City in misleading them or whatever, which I don't really see, since the City owns half the land around this pond maybe they could be a cont¥ibutor to an improvement project on the pond. Do their pendance that way. Ahrens: I have one more comment. Question for the staff. I assume that once word Gets out that the applicant for alterations of the wetlands aren't going to go real far in f~ont of the Planning Commission for other people who've already altered their wetlands, what's going to happen? Are you going to continue to get requests? Olsen: That's what we were just discussing because we've told them that they have to come through with the process and again, the residents who are here tonight have been very pleasant to work with. So we will have to send them another letter giving them a deadline that they will have to pursue. We already have notice and one of the people are here tonight. Mr. Kern, and they know that they do have to come through with the wetland alteration permit process. I think one of the reasons it's taking longer with the wetland to the south that has been altered throughout the whole wetland is they are trying to, when we did meet with them, we said that do come in with one overall plan. Everyone in agreement with what you wanted to have done ultimately and I think that they're still working on that. I don't know if they're actively pursuing it. I'm assuming they are but we will continue to, staff still sees it as violation of the ordinance and that they do have to go through the permit process. Emmings: Does that group have a spokesperson that you have contact with? Olsen: Yes. Emmings: I think you should send them our Minutes from this. Olsen: There's a couple that I'll send them to. Conrad: You know we've just got to tackle this wetland deal because I'm really getting tired of talking about it and preaching every 2 weeks. There's this mystic about the wetland alteration permit. It's like a building permit. It's like you can. All you have to do is fill this out and really the standards, you know I'm not sure how you talk. Olsen: We try not to give that impression. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 29 Conrad: Don't you? Okay. See I don't know but I don't see it on the form so it's Iike we don't realIy want wetlands aItered and there is a way if you can improve it. We've just got to make sure that that is reaiIy communicated up front because it's not Iike an automatic. I think you've got to make sure that that is communicated. Any other comments. Batzli: I move that the planning Comm£ssion recommends denial of Wetland Alteration Permit ~90-4 for Lots 4 and 5, Block 2, Curry Farms. Conrad: Is there a second? Ellson: Second. Batzl/ moved, Ellson seconded that the Planning Commiss/on recommend denial of Wetland Alteration Permit #90-4 for Lots 4 and 5, Block 2, Curry Farms. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. Conrad: This wlll go to the Clty Councll on August 13th. I appreciate you all for coming in. I thank you for your comments both pro and con. We understand both sides of the coin. Please stay with it because Council will probably have their own opinions on th[~'particutar issue so thanks for coming in. SKETCH PLAN REVIEW FOR A PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT TO CREATE AN AUTO SERVICE CENTER WITH A RESTAURANT ON PROPERTY ZONED 8H, HIGHWAY BUSINESS DISTRICT AND LOCATED ON THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF THE INTERSECTION OF HWY. 5 AND 101, (HANUS BUILDING), LOTUS REALTY SERVICES. Paul Krauss presented the staff report on this item. Conrad: Why don't we just open it up for comments. We're not voting on this tonight but I think we're providing the applicant and the City any of our comments or our guidance as the applicant goes back and tries to manipulate this to meet some of staff's concerns and maybe our concerns as does it qualify for a PUD in our minds and is this this, what are our requirements for the entrance to Chanhassen. Do we have an entrance to Chanhassen? Do we care? Does this meet whatever our standards might be? Joan, start at your end. Ahrens: I was going to try to find something positive to say tonight since everything else has been negative. Conrad: You really are negative. Ahrens: I know. But I can't. Ellson: I cannot tell a lie. Ahrens: There are a lot of problems I see with this. First of all, maybe we could tie the architecture in with the Dinner Theatre. Only kidding but this is, I'm not sure that this is what we want if this is going to be the entrance to Chanhassen. This looks real crowded to me first of all. And Planning Commission Meeting 3uly 18, 1990 - Page 30 the businesses that are proposed here I'm not sure are, I keep seeing Hardee's in here and [ thought that the last t£me we discussed this we decided that it wasn't neCessarily going to be Hardee's. We were going to leave it open and Hardee's was not necessarily something we wanted right there. We have a Hardee's and a car wash and an auto repair and then a proposed retail facility which is probably like a movie rental or that type of deal. Krauss: It's a small dual tenant retail building. At this point there's only one tenant perspectively identified but presumably any retail type of use can go in there. Ahrens: I'm not sure I want to get into the specifics of the curb cuts and the landscaping or anything like that right now because I have a hard time visualizing that this is what I think we should be putting in that area. Conrad: Do you have any idea? You know we do have a building there already. Ahrens: Right. Conrad: And the building to the east, the area to the east is not too large. Any direction? Ahrens: Well I think that maybe we should cut down on the number of things we're going to put there. It seems to me awfully crowded with the four buildings right there. A restaurant would be great you know. A decent restaurant. I mean a restaurant. Not. Conrad: Not a fast food. Ahrens: Yeah. Conrad: What's the lot coverage in this particular sketch? There's not much green. Krauss: We don't know. It's got to be very high. Now within the PUD district that does not apply but it's got to be very high. Ahrens: I would think also by eliminating the number of structures on this parcel would cut down on the parking problems and everything else. All the other things. Krauss: Yeah, well this has been reduced and if you can believe it, this has been reduced in density since we've been working with the applicant. A couple of, well the Hanus building being where it is makes planning around it very difficult and maybe the architect can speak to that but you've got this big fixture there and you've got the site trailing down as it gets out to the street. There's not a whole lot of flexibility in terms of where you push things. Relocation of the car wash is a given to the extent that you've got to take the car wash away from it's existing location to make this happen. The car wash was decreased in size. Now there's a lot of pre-conceived notions going into this as well. In fact that it's a fast Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 31 food so you deslgn around a fast food. The car wash has to have so many bays so the architect was given a fairly difficult task in terms of resolving these things. I too share a concern about density but I think they've done a fairly good job of dealing with the parameters that they were given to deal with. I think that for them to accommodate the concerns of the issues that were raised in the staff report, you're going to see some decrease in intensity. How much I don't know. That really is up to the creativity of the architect. Conrad: Okay. Joan, anything else? Jim. Hildermuth: In the report, as I read the report, I'm wondering what the City is getting in exchange for the PUD status. I can understand why the PUD classification is going to be required for this parcel. I guess that's one question. Another concern that I have is that there's going to be a lot of in and out traffic here. The use is pretty intense. I guess I envisioned for some time an office building in here. Maybe an office building with a restaurant on the first floor or something like that possibly but something that probably wouldn't have as much in and out traffic off of TH 101 as a car wash and a fast food restaurant. I don't know, it may not be possible to design around the Hanus building to make really effective use of this parcel. Krauss: It does make it very difficult and apparently while the area around it's not particularly attractive, the building was very solidly built and does represent a significant investment. Again, if you look at the list of givens that were handed to the architect, you've got to work around it. Wildermuth: What does the City get for the PUD status in this? Krauss: We haven't gotten it yet. I think what the report says is that here's what we want for it in terms of high quality architecture. In terms of high quality landscaping. In terms of comprehensive signage package so not everybody has a pylon sticking up. Those kinds of things are outlined in here but as it's a sketch plan they really haven't gotten into'that kind of detail. Wildermuth: I guess if that's all that the City can really anticipate getting, they're going to have to be pretty extraordinary to fly. Conrad: Brian. Batzli: The Amoco's putting in a car wash aren't they? Krauss: Excuse me? Batzli: The Amoco's putting in a car wash just north of there? Krauss: Amoco has a single bay self service car wash. They've talked conceptually about having a full service car wash east of the gas station at some point in the future but that hasn't been approved. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 32 Batzli: If we don't vacate West 79th, would that eventually go through to the other end where proposed TH 1017 Would there be access from both ends? Krauss: No. Batzli: So this is really going to be a poorly accessible site as you go deeper and deeper into it? Krauss: Right. Keep in mind that while the plans are being completed now, the way it looks is that the Taco Shoppe will definitely be acquired for TH 101 construction. The Ready Mix site probably will be. Once the City owns it, you know you turn around and try to do something with whatever is needed for right-of-way. What happens east of the Hanus property has not been really determined at this point in time but there's not a lot of room left there. Wildermuth: Is this proposed retail facility, is that on the Hanus property or is that on the Ready Mix property? Krauss: That's on the Hanus property. Batzli: How far away did we put the road, did we make the bank? Did the bank have a turn-in right across the railroad tracks? The new bank. The Crossroads or whatever. Krauss: I don't recall what we did with them. I k~ow we had a concern with it. Batzli: I guess I'd, looking at this I see if we end up with a median in the middle of the road here, this is going to be a very difficult site to get into and out of and I agree with 3ira's comment that if it's going to be a site that's going to have a lot of traffic in and out, I think we're going to be creating a lot of problems with the current configuration. I don't have any problem with making this a PUD but I don't know if this really does it for me or the City as far best development of this particular site but I think it's right. It's going to be a very difficult site to develop and it's poorly accessible and I don't know. Ellson: I don't have a whole lot new. My first comment, just like 3ira's is what do we get for this PUD. It'd be better even if a lot of times McDonald's have outdoor play yards or something like that. I guess that would be nicer than just the drive-up and concrete or something that makes it look a little more like a rest area where you could eat outside. don't know. I don't see us getting anything out of it and I know that it's the first go around but I get the feeling that it's like you said, they originally came with maybe 10 things. Now they're going down to 4. Then we see 3 and we still don't like it. Get almost pushed into feeling like they're compromising less. I still don't like it. This reminds me of what's right across from Eden Prairie Center and it's like, what was it a fish shop for a while and then you go up that street and then it was a car wash and then it was like a, not a service center as much as an auto parts and then there was a Q station or something like that and that's exactly what this reminds me of. It's not exactly what I want for the entrance. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 33 Ahrens: ...what this is going to look like in 10 to 15 years. Ellson: Yeah. So while I can agree that it's hard to develop, I sure would like to see something else on here and take a better look at it at another try. Conrad: Remember what Paul is saying is we get some, maybe some architectural. What do we get out of it? Paul has said that we might get some architectural improvements. Ne might get some continuity from property to property. There are some things that for sure we can get out of it. Batzli: I don't see that happening because Hardee's restaurant looks like a Hardee's restaurant and you're not going to make the Hanus building look like a Hardee's restaurant and the Amoco station is totally designed. I don't see that this is being developed in a PUD manner to have a sameness to the architecture or anything like that. I mean Hardee's is not going to come in and redesign the look of their restaurant. Nildermuth: There's going to have to be a lot of compromise. Batzli: Yeah. Conrad: Steve. Wildermuth: How about a light rail station? Ahrens: Yeah. That's a great idea. Conrad: I keep thinking about that. Restaurant, light rail. We could move the Chaska brick buildings here. Emmings: Historical preservation area. Conrad: Remember, other than being critical folks, we're looking for recommendations. Emmings: I'm confused about what we're doing here procedurally a little bit. Conrad: Sketch plan is a time when they sort of bring in their ideas and we kind of say, yeah. We kind of like that idea and we don't like that one. It's not a formal proposal right now. They're sort of testing the water and looking for our feelings. Emmings: So this is not the concept review? Krauss: Yes it is. Emmings: No, it can't be I don't think. That's why I think we've got a little confusion here about what we're doing. At least I do. If this is a sketch plan review, which I'm not sure I'm finding any, I don't know where the authority for this is in here but I know we've done it before and I'm Planning Commission Heeting 3uly 18, 1990 - Page 34 comfortable doing that with the understanding that this is sort of informal and no action. The concept plan review under the PUD ordinance requires a public hearing in front of the Planning Commission with notice to all the surrounding property owners. Olsen: It was sent out as a public hearing, Emmings: Well I haven't heard a public hearing being opened. Conrad: No. BatzI£: We're in New Business. Conrad: Yeah, I'm certainly dealing with it differently than that. Olsen: They were sent notices... Ahrens: This isn't even under the pubtic hearing part though. Emmings: No. I think there's some, I don't know. I'm not sure what we're doing. ElIson: You put it under new business, not public hearing. Conrad: What are we doing? Ellson: Skip reviewing. We're just giving ou~ comments. Conrad: That's what I thought we were doing. Emmings: See it says on here general concept slte plan and under general concept plan under the PUD ordinance, it says down here under C(3) that the Planning Commission shall conduct a hearing. Krauss: Well what we think, we're trying to put together what happened and the staff report was written for concept plan review. Emmings: This should not be called a sketch. Krauss: There is no such thing as a sketch plan. Emmings: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And we shouldn't be using those words because that's confusing. Krauss: When the agenda was put together, it was erroneously called sketch plan but we did get the names and addresses. I'm 99~. sure we published it. In fact I know we published it and we sent out everything and the agenda was unfortunately in error. Emmings: Okay, so it's been published and we've got notice to all land owners within 500 feet in addition? Okay. So we've met all the conditions we have to meet but we haven't opened the public hearing or closed one. I don't know if anybody cares. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 35 Erhart: Why don't we just do it. Why don't you open it up so anybody who wants to talk can come up and talk. Conrad: What's the, in a concept pian Paul, what is the culmination? What is our action? Krauss: You vote to act positively or negatively on the concept. Conrad: On the concept or on it being a PUD? Krauss: Well it's not a PUD until you rezone it and you're not being asked to formally act on that. Conrad: We're not rezoning it tonight. Are you asking us whether we think we're in favor of rezoning it? Krauss: Whether you're in favor of the concept which includes it being a PUD. Emmings: I think it specifically says in here, it says approval of a concept statement shall not obligate the City to approve the final plan or any part thereof or to rezone the property so that's been covered under the ordinance. The general concept plan sounds like what we used to call a sketch plan review for a subdivision very much. It's a very general kind of thing and then it goes to the City Council and they approve it and then you've got the development stage and the final replatting and all of that. Olsen: You could even do development and concept plan. Emmings: Yeah, but I don't think we want to do that on this one. Olsen: No. Conrad: Well let's keep going with our comments and then we'll open it up for a public hearing. Emmings: The other thing is, there are specific things that are supposed to be in the general concept plan and I don't know that they're all here. Maybe they are. I'm wondering if the staff has reviewed that. Has staff reviewed what's supposed to be in general concept plan and do we have all those things? Have we got the overall gross and net density on the site? Does that have any meaning when we're not talking residential? Most of the PUD ordinances are oriented to residential uses. Krauss: Frankly, I don't like our PUD ordinance. Olsen: We didn't take it from Minnetonka. Emmings: Frankly, we don't like it either. Erhart: Once you get these all changed to what you like, we don't want to see you walk out of here and then the next guy comes in and says, I don't 1 i ke this · Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 36 Emmings: I love this. There's a sentence in here in the staff report that says, I'm going to send this into the New Yorker. It says, it is the staff's goal that this project be developed not only with cost utilization of access and utilities but also with a common architectural theme and signage that is vindictive of it's location. By 6od, we'll show them. It says that the Hanus building is not in cOmPliance with current building codes. Krauss: That's true. Emmings: And I'm just curious about, didn't we just allow, didn't we just take some action that allowed some activity in that building? Why would we do that if the building didn't meet Code? Olsen: Nell they are. That new business is doing a retrofit to meet Code right? Krauss: Right. Emmings: Okay, they're in there and operating in a building that doesn't meet Code. Olsen: Well the rest of the building. Their portion now does. Little by little. Emmings: I don't really have anything much-to add but what's been said. t am having frankly some trouble visualizing what this would look like from the highway and that's of key importance to me. I don't think it probably looks very good but I don't know that without some kind of an elevation or some kind of a drawing that will show me what it looks like from TH 5. Frankly in the absence of that, I can't really assess this thing without knowing that. Why don't they have elevations here? Krauss: We've talked to them about that and I guess they can specifically address that but I think it might have to do with how much work effort they put into a pro3ect before they got some blessings to proceed. Emmings: I can understand that but I guess to what extent are they going to have control over what Hardee's looks like? Any a~ all? Krauss: I think we have every control over that. Now that's been a point of discussion between staff and the applicant. We don't view Hardee's as a free entity. We view Hardee's as one element of a PUD and if Hardee's book architecture doesn't fit, it's going to have to be modified to fit. Emmings: We'll make them put golden arches on it. But I really think it's such a critical piece of property in terms of what people see when they come up here that we shouldn't really do anything with this until we've got some drawings that show us what this is going to look like. I can't tel1. Batzli: So you don't even want it to say that this site might be appropriate for a PUD tonight? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 37 Emmings: No, I think it is. I think the difficulties of developing this site tend toward a PUD. I think that's reasonable. But whether this plan. You know when you look down on what's drawn on this piece of paper, it looks cramped and crowded and contrived to try and move cars. I'm sure it was a headache and a difficult problem for the architect and I'm perfectly willing to concede that he did the best he could under the circumstances but it really doesn't look very good. Erhart: Well I appreciate the effort that someone's gone to here to try to develop this site and improve it over what it is. I think the question is, that I'm going to pose here and just try to figure out what do we gain by waiting or what do we lose by doing this now? I've got a couple questions to maybe try and answer that in my mind. Before that is, Gary Brown's current car wash, what's the plans for that irregard'less of this? Is that going to stay? Krauss: If this doesn't happen, that would stay yes. Erhart: Okay, so that piece of property is essentially, on that piece of property that now is proposed for Hardee's which could possibly develop independently. Krauss: It could but it would be very difficult because it would have virtually no visibility from the street. Erhart: You mean from TH 5? Krauss: Gary Brown's car wash is this little lot right here. Erhart: But I mean assume Gary sold that with the next lot. Those two lots together could develop independently without the Hanus building? KYauss: Sure. Erhart: That could be a restaurant or a Hardee's just by itself. The difference is that they would fall under the 65~ coverage. Right now here it looks like when you pull this all together, it looks like you're at about 80~-90~ coverage. $o it's a lot of coverage and in exchange what I think we're getting beyond, fundamentally beyond what other things you can get is we're hoping someone is going to come in and improve the Hanus building to the degree that you can improve it given you're Going to deal with it. My question is, if we say we don't like this at this time, then what will happen is I guess we wait until it becomes more valuable or the right guy comes along and buys the whole town and does it or the option is, why doesn't, I mean we bought Pauly's and everything else downtown in redevelopment. Why wouldn't we do this with Ready-Mix and do the downtown redevelopment here? Is there some reason we can't do that? Brad 3ohnson: You have to have a tenant. Erhart: Do we have a tenant for Pauly's? What makes this corner less important than that one? Planning Commission Meeting 3uly 18, 1990 - Page 38 Brad Johnson: I'll answer all these things in a few minutes. It's not designated as a redevelopment site. Erhart: Yeah, but that can change assuming. So then the other question is, it would seem to me, right now we're in the process of talking about buying the Ready-Mix and the Taco Shoppe. We at one time talked about making this street here one of the alternatives for the redesign TH 101 at that time it went through. Now why do you say now that it can't go through? Krauss: Because of the way the intersection of TH lO1 and TH 5 and the railway tracks and 78th Street work out, it's just too crowded to safely introduce another turning movement. Erhart: Because the existing houses, you couldn't move it further west because of the existing lots? Krauss: Well you get grade problems. We looked in fact at the possibility of leaving Ready-Mix. Giving them a new access further west on 78th Street but you get into some real difficult grade problems with the railroad plus you need another railway crossing which they won't give us. Erhart: Well we would have had to require that when we talked about the redesign. If we were going to do this as an alternative for 101 realignment we would have bad an additional railroad crossing there. Krauss: We do have a revised railway crossing now with TH 101 as it's proposed today. Erhart: I guess I don't remember exactly how that went but I remember that this was a thru street on those proposals. Again, I appreciate the effort but I really wonder if the timing isn't such that we would be better off waiting a little bit on this. It's really, it's packed in there and again I agree with Steve. The obvious next step.would be to take a look at what it would look like. The other thing is that the coverage is it's going to get you a situation where you don't have room, really much room left for landscaping or do you feel that the landscaping that they've shown is what you want. Krauss: No, and we've said that we think that what they've shown is inadequate. We've asked them to move some buildings back and they have done that to give more room on the TH 5 exposure from landscaping but in other areas there's extremely limited opportunities for doing anything. These conceptual tree stamps don't mean a whole beck of a lot to me. I don't think it's been given a lot of thought and you really have to get a handle, as Steve points out, with the view from TH 5. There's a pretty good elevation change in there and there will be some more when the highway's rebuilt so you really have to see the finished concept. Erhart: Well let me add one thing and then I'll give you my opinion. I would say one of the things you might look at here is the right in off TH 5 and they have one that works very effectively at the McDonald's and Green Streets or whatever it is over in Eden Prairie in an area that's difficult Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 39 to get into for people coming west but it does allow some people going Nest not to have to go to the red light and then to go back in by the truck parking area. Maybe the highway department would laugh at you but it's. Krauss: They would have very serious problems with that. As you know, they closed the right-in into the shopping center in Eden Prairie on TH 5. Etlson: The Driskill's area? Krauss: You used to be able to get directly into that. They shut that down. Conrad: I don't understand. Why would they have a problem with that here? Krauss: Anytime you introduce a turning movement on a main line street you've got traffic slowing down white the rest of the traffic is speeding along at 50-55 mph. It's just a hazardous situation. Emmings: Doesn't it go uphill kind of fast? Erhart: Anyway, a right-in would help the situation here because it would reduce the number of turns coming in by the railroad tracks from the south. Overall I guess yeah, I'm in favor of looking at this as a PUD. I'm not excited about the plan. I think it's too dense. Too much coverage. You're addition another proposed retail facility there. If you really want to deal with the existing buildings, maybe that has to be eliminated. Maybe part of the existing building next to the proposed car wash has to be eliminated. It's a small little box there. I'm welcome to look at a PUD at something to approve that site. I think it's got to be a little bit different than this if it's going to get all the way through. On the other hand, maybe a wait isn't bad either. So Ladd. Conrad: Does it serve our goal to open this up as a public hearing right now? Krauss: Well, that was the intent. I believe it does. You can still take action I would assume to either continue or recommend denial or approval, whatever you want. If there was some additional detailing that the applicant was willing to provide you, that might be persuasive, you could ask for that. Get a continuance. Conrad: I think in summary before, I think we will open up a public hearing and just see. We've done this backwards unfortunately and that's my fault because I was looking at the word sketch and I've got old memories of what sketch means. I don't update myself. My comments are real consistent with the rest of the Planning Commissioners. It really seems packed. I think it's real appropriate to do this as a PUD. I think that's the way to get the most value out of this property because it's not an easy one to develop yet I'm not, I think in the staff report there are a lot of issues the least of which is the traffic generation. It just seems like a lot of traffic poured into an area that really, like 3im said, probably should be office. Yet I know office is probably not the best, not the hottest property to rent these days out here so you know that's obviously Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 40 why it's not coming in with office but it seems like we're putting in a lot of stuff in a little bit of land. I think let's open this up as a public hearing. We'll 9o through that motion and then we'll decide what we want to do with it after that. I'll open up the public hearing and ask if there are comments. Brad, if you want to play the role, now that you heard. We turn the tables on you. See now you know where Ne are and usually we know where you are and then we can take shots at you. Now the tables are turned. You know exactly what we think and we're 100~ in agreement. Brad Johnson: Okay, my name is Brad Johnson. I'm with Lotus Realty and we're primarily the owner of most of the property there. I have with me Mr. Ron Ohe who represents Hardee's and also Paul Humiston, the architect in charge of this and I'd like to just address maybe first of all why we're doing this because it's taken us 3 years to get the control. You have probably 6 more months where this particular parcel will be under control of one individual or group of people and that's the Lotus Realty group. Following that, this property will then, if something is not done with it, then it will be just built out. It is zoned for auto repair, auto body. It is zoned for a car wash. It's zoned for fast foods. It's zoned for all those things and that's what the permitted uses are there. There is sufficient room there currently. There's a 36,000 square foot area called the Kerber's property we call it where we could go ahead and build anything. We've got a number of buyers who'd like to purchase it and primarily for auto body. All permitted uses. Instant Lube. Small facilities generating very little, in my business, tax increment to make any major changes to the site. The Hanus building is a permitted use. We are slowly changing it. It probably needs a facelifting of about $100,000.00 to $150,000.00 which has no economic value to 'the land owner. The parcel in the rear, there's 2 1/2 acres back there that we have. We have a number of people who wish to purchase that at the present time whether we do the PUD or not. The PUD is not a requirement for the development of this particular site. The PUD is a requirement in order to do the site in the manner that we have and the reason we're doing it in the manner that we have and the reasons that it's taken us such a long time to get it here, which is about 2 years, is that we have to get Gary Brown to agree to move his car wash. In order for him to move his car wash from the corner, he has to replace it. Okay? The only place on the site he is willing to put the car wash as you see it and then upgrade it is where it is. Otherwise it will just stay there and that will be your entrance into Chanhassen. We have in addition to Hardee's, Dairy Queen who wants to go there. Another fast food type places. Totally permitted and on 36,000 square feet we can put in just about anything that would be that fast food category. Okay, these are all permitted uses but there'd be no plan. We just sell each piece of property and they'd come and all they'd have to do is meet your standard guideline. There's a private street in front. We own the property all the way along the railroad tracks. The road itself is on an easement so we can create parking .all the way along the railroad to meet parking needs just because it's our property, not the City's. The City has an easement for the road. I've been through the HRA now on this plan over the last 2 years. I can't do anything about the Hanus building. It's a one million dollar facility. Originally construction costs. It's a very expensive building. You wouldn't tear it down tomorrow. It's got a value today of around $700,000.00 because of the use it's currently used Planning Commission Meeting July 28, 1990 - Page 41 for. People would like to use it just like it is. We've got a number of people who just like to continue forever using it like it is. Just like Apple Valley is continuing using it where it is. So when Hardee's came to us and said they'd be willing to come in and do what they're doing here if we could relocate the car wash. They would be willing to ask for no TIF assistance. They'd be willing to pay sufficient amount of money which means all their tax, you know it's in the tax increment district. All that money would go to trying to do the rest you see. Helping on the Hanus. They're not asking for any assistance or paying a reasonable rate for it. They gave us enough money potentially to relocate Mr. Brown. Me feel that the architecture that we'd probably propose would be at least equal to the Amoco station and that was a permitted use. All you have to do is come in and pull a permit because they're in. I mean these are the types of things you're dealing with. So first thing we're proposed of PUD is to give you some control over the architecture, which from a developer's point of view takes all control away from us. Because right now I don't think you can, am I right Paul your standard if I came in for a permit, you could apply your standard architectural standards that the City has but you could not say this has to be the entry without buying the property from the developer. It has to be designed any particular way. The PUD gives you the control to assist us in the development of the parcel. Now as you upgrade that, because Hardee's is there. That increment that they're generating, the HRA then would have to finance the architectural improvement above and beyond economic value of the property which is to my mind to plow some money into landscaping. To plow some money into the redevelopment or changing of the looks of the Hanus building which we think we can do. Now we'll address that in a few minutes. The reason we haven't done that is because we have to listen first. You know we can come in with all kinds of elevations which everybody leaves on which you spend a lot of money on elevations and many times they'll change it because it doesn't meet what people want. The car wash is there because people, the only area in the whole city of Chanhassen zoned for car washes and I have probably one car wash guy a day calling me to put a car wash in there because they all know it's the only place in town zoned for that type of thing. It's your highest traffic area in the community and that's where retail wants to be. Now, this is planned. It's consistent with the plan for that area as prescribed by all your consultants. It's consistent With the TH 101 corridor plan right that we helped and ~ere involved in the TH 101 corridor planning process. The plan is to start with what we have and scale down the development as we got deeper into it. The retail sites are very low traffic generators. That's exactly what they wanted and then farther down the line in the Apple Valley place, the plan was to put offices in. Otherwise it would just be unused and the acquisition of Apple Valley by the City will be in the $800,000.00 to 1.2 million category when it's all done with and you've got to come back then and pay for it with something to be built on there. Otherwise it will be the Apple Valley, I mean the City doesn't have the money to go around buying up Apple Vatley's and buying up...for somebody. You don't have the money to go around buying up things. It's up to the developer to generate enough of a tax revenue with what he's doing. Now, you'll notice that the bank over here is done correct? The new bank building that was just built over here on 79th? You'll notice that the shopping center next door is completed. Obviously it's not. Why is it not? Because it's not viable. There were no tenants. And what we Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 42 have at the present time, through Hardee's. Through Mr. Brown's participation. You've got a lot of retail people that we could probably say we have tenants for every building that we have here. Now I'm more than happy, I'd love to take about 60 feet of the end of the Hanus building out of there. Okay? I would love to do that and I'd love to have the HRA say that's fine. They'll do it. Or take out that little piece that somebody said we should just get rid of. The 360 square foot parcel where Brown now has put $200,000.00 of investment in for an auto repair facility which this town needs and it's the only place in town to do it because it's the only one zoned for that. Alright? So what you have here is that past history, years and years ago, all of 10 years ago, is they asked Mr. Hanus to move his Hanus repair facility out of downtown when they were going to redo the downtown. He's the only tenant that on his own moved and built what at that time was probably one of the best structures in the whole city in 1977. That's why it's there. Now whether that use today is not, I don't think is a very good use personally and so we're trying to straighten it out. So that's what we're up to. The land is under control. The owner is willing to submit to a PUD if in fact we can do something like this, because if I can't do something like this, I can't generate enough revenue today to guarantee you delivery of something. The alternative simply then is to go back to just doing pieces. Forget Mr. Brown moving the car wash. Do something on the 36,000. Move the Hardee's someplace else in town where it's a permitted use because it will be in town. There's permitted uses. Places where we can do those types of things. You lose that tenant and we develop some small retail out in the back. Mait for TH 5 to come through in a couple years. Clean that up. You know, that's originally what we were planning on doing but we weren't generating enough tax increment to make any major investment in the Hanus facility itself. That's where the Hardee's thing comes in and I personally would prefer probably not to do this plan because I foresee I'm going to have, well I've been at it now Paul with you for 6 months. Okay? And we said we were not going to present anything to the Planning Commission that we didn't get a fairly positive report from the staff. That was my deal with Paul. That's my deal with the HRA. I consider his report fairly positive given the nature of a PUD in this community. So that's kind of where we are. As far as phasing it, we can probably phase it. As far as accessibility is concerned, we'll address that as far as the traffic generation is here and we're working with your traffic engineer to determine whether we really are generating any traffic. I think it's perceived that we are. Are we really? And these are all the issues that we know we have to deal with but can that corner handle it? Me don't know. As far as the elevations, I think we can make this look very attractive simply because by landscaping and putting up a couple of barriers as the architect will say, I think we can do that. I think it could look good. It would look a beck of a lot better than this would look for the next 10 years of the Hanus facility. Just like it is and continued use as it is. So that's kind of what we're trying to do. And what you're getting for your PUD is you get your input as to what this is and I think that's important. I think without the PUD, we would be forced just to sell the land and let it slide on as a normal kind of development and there are people that are willing to do that and that's not any kind of threat. I mean this is what we have to do. Me have to sell. Me cannot continue to hold as it is. You can say well let's wait for the HRA to come along. Right now the HRA is simply saying in the Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 43 downtown area, they're not going to spend anymore than 3 years of increment. For them to come in and do any major kind of a thing here is 10 to 12 years of increment. This is not considered a major redevelopment area in comparison to the downtown. So the policy at the HRA level is to get, if we go beyond 3 years of increment we're in trouble so. I'd like to have the architect kind of address those issues that he feels, you should hear from him on this project and then Ron Ohe could address your concerns about a restaurant. Remember this is a permitted use planned years and years ago for this site through the zoning process. And then we'd like to answer any questions but what I heard initially is you see no urgency here but I don't think you know the history of the project and what else could happen here and how long, when we picked this up this place had not paid any rent to anybody for 4 years. So it was in that bad of shape. It had not paid it's taxes for 4 years. It's paid taxes and it's paid rent since we took it over so it's been slowly, he even paid his water bill today, so it's slowly becoming a good citizen and that's what we've been trying to accomplish there but it's not been easy. So Paul, do you want to address any questions? Paul Humiston: My name is Paul Humiston and I'm with Wirtinen, Clark & Larson Architects in Minneapolis and we've been retained by Lotus Realty to do the planning on this. The project that you see, we've been in the process of talking with Paul and staff for about 4 or 5 months since we were retained by Lotus working on it. Our proposal is the general concept plan for this site. Now some of you have expressed concerns about what you haven't seen. What kind of detail is lacking here and to answer that very quickly and succinctly, it's because it's not required at this stage. We've taken your Chanhassen City Code to the letter here and presented and worked out a concept plan for this. How it would work. How it would be trafficed. The density. What kinds of uses are on the site. I've come here this evening prepared to address a couple of the issues that are brought up by the staff report and hoping that everybody was pretty well familiar with that. Most of you have not addressed many of those issues at this point but I think I will anyhow. First of all the image of the site has been outlined in, there's a written narrative that was accompanying the report. I think at this point it's best to say that the whole thing would be treated as uniformily as possible. I think that's repsented in the planning as well as the ideas that would be applied with the architecture of the site. A lot of you have talked about how it seems to be jumbled. If you look really closely at it, everything on the site is arranged as closely to uniformally as possible. It's an odd shaped site and it's an odd shaped access road that we've chosen not to go in and piece meal a lot of buildings all around there in a patchwork pattern but to put them in a uniform fashion so that it's perceived from TH 5 as a project. As a uniform area. A couple of the concerns that have been raised by staff are that none of the buildings are parallel to TH 5 and that there is an irregular pattern there. We've tried to provide what landscaping spaces left in those areas surrounding the site and especially along TH 5 and deal with some and provide some signage and some retaining wall areas. Not retaining walls but wall areas that would also provide some additional uniformity to that visually from TH 5. The jury's still out on the traffic report at this point. I think there are valid concerns about access into and out of the site and I think we really can't address many of those Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 44 concerns at this point until we have that report in hand. There was concern about the density and the amount of parking provided for some of the different pieces on the site in the staff report. There's first of all, I'll just work across the site. We've got Hardee's on the end. We've provided 61 parking spaces for Hardee's. The City Code requires 1 car Der 60 gross square feet for a fast food use. That's a very high requirement compared to a lot of the cities in the area and places that we've had experience working as professionals. The Hardee's proposal has a fixed number of seats. It has an area for 110 seating areas. We~ve provided 61 spaces which is what is 1 car for 1.8 fixed seats. Some of the other cities in the area require 1 for 2.5 seats or even 1 for 2.3. I think we've exceeded a lot of other similar requirements quite well and I think that the parking there will serve Hardee's quite well and Mr. Ron Ohe will address that from an operational standpoint after I~m done speaking. There is one, I believe that staff has misinterpretted some of our intention with the parking as with regards to the Hanus building. On page 7 of the report it refers to 40 parking spaces being provided for the Hanus building. In actuality we've provided 50 parking spaces. We've provided 4 parking spaces for the car wash. 14 for Gary Brown's portion of the building. That portion of the building which he is occupying a service facility under the current Code, 1 for 200. 1 car for 200 square feet. This area requires 8 cars. Staff has suggested that we provide some data or report based on other auto mall uses around the cities to provide some kind of data for parking requirements for the building. Being that it's, the auto mall is kind of a newer phenomena. I think that's not a bad idea. 3ust to initially address that I would say that the remaining portion of the Hanus building would be developed as a combination of service and some retail. Generally a good example would be Goodyear. A Goodyear service facility that might have 6 or 8 bays for working on cars and then 1,000 square feet for a retail showroom area. Ideally that whole piece of a building would be developed with about a 70/30 split between service and retail. Applying the City's parking codes to that, we come up with a requirement of 42 cars. We're required for 42 here and we're required for 8 there and it works out evenly at 50 required and 50 proposed parking spaces. The rest of the retail area we provided additional parking over what is required although as staff has pointed out it's all... Staff is proposing that the access road be a public road. I think due to the nature of the site and what staff has rightly recognized as a difficult one to develop, we really need the flexibility that a private road is important in this. They made some recommendations about where the setbacks ought to be and how some things would be set up. The Code applying to the site as current would require the most setback for parking...to the railroad property. And earlier discussions it was suggested that we provide a 5 foot setback out there. We've done that and we're showing how we would landscape that conceptually. It's a full 5 foot boulevard. We have.., boulevard trees on either side and then we provide a full 10 foot landscape strip to the south for a good landscape buffer between the road and the businesses. It's an area where there would be ample room for berming. For shrubbery. For screening cars and headlights from the rest of the road and that's what we perceived to me landscape buffer means. Staff has recommended 10 foot to the north and I'm concerned that if we do that, have to provide that landscape buffer, that we really... I don't see that a landscape buffer between the railroad and the road is as useful as it... So as part of the recommendations staff has Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 45 proposed that a public roadway with a 45 foot right-of--way and I would express at this point that we will need flexibility of a private road and that the parking issues are not as, that they're much more adequate than proposed. Otherwise I think we concur mostly with the staff report and I would like to thank them for the work that they've put in on it and compiling the report that you got from them. Ron Oh: I'm Ron Oh. I'm representing Hardee's. Certainly it"s sometimes disconcerning when people don't appreciate the business that we have but we've come to recognize that at times that it maybe doesn't fit into what everybody would like to do. We're interested in Chanhassen. We have been interested in Chanhassen for quite some time and we have looked at various sites in the community to see what could be done. We identified what 8tad probably 9 months ago, the location that we're speaking about. Our initial request was simply to buy the carwash and just go that route. However, Brad felt that because of what was going on with the Hanus building and so forth it would make more sense to be able to develop that in conjunction with the Hardee's development. The reason we identified this site as a good potential is the fact that you have a tremendous employment base here and we have found in other communities in other suburbs of the metropolitan area that where there is a tremendous employment base, that we will be very successful. So quite obviously if we can be successful we're interested in the community. There are a couple other points that have been talked about and certainly we have to wait for the traffic report so that can be defined. I think perhaps though that there is maybe a conception that we would be generating a tremendous amount of traffic. I could go into a real detail on how we make these determinations but if in fact we were to do 120~ of what the average normal volume is in the metropolitan area, we would generate no more than 450 cars per day. That has two fold. One is the fact that we, the reason I make that point, or two things. The parking has been, staff has questioned whether or not that's adequate, particularly for the Hardee's site. 45~ to 50~ of the business that is done is done through the drive-thru so therefore the other stalls would be used, the other part of the parking lot would be used for permanent parking. The other point from Hardee's perspective, understand that Hardee's corporate has also looked at the site. This isn't just a franchisee that's decided to go on his own. Hardee's corporate has done that and that is quite an approval process by the way. They just don't like to see Hardee's go up anywhere without having first found out whether or not from their perception it will be successful. They operate that if we are able to show a car for every 2 seats that we're going to have 110 as I've indicated, that becomes more than adequate because of the amount of traffic that is generated through the drive-thru. That would mean then 55 cars so it appears to be more than adequate with what the dimension is here. We're, as I said, interested in coming into Chanhassen. We've identified this as a site we'd like to go to. I would ask your support in allowing us to do that. Thank you. Conrad: Thanks for your comments. Ellson: Ron, can I ask you a question? Does Hardee's ever have outdoor seating or the playground type of things? I think something like that I guess is what I would see maybe I could get out of a PUD. Not that I would be kicking out a Hardee's but that I'd get more a gentle look in things Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 46 versus with all the concrete. I don't know if you've ever done that sort of thing and if that's a possibility. Run Ohe: Yes we have. There is that and there's also the indoor playground facility which Hardee's is probably the pioneer of that concept. I work with a franchisee that we've done in Wisconsin that started it all so that makes more of a community... Ellson: Well especially if you see it from the highway. Run Ohe: But part of the problem we have here and as far as an outdoor facility is just again that the site is not a normal site and' that it's got the normal rectangle and it's 160 feet wide by 250 feet deep and allows all those things to happen very nicely. This doesn't do that and so we're trying to accommodate and do the best job we can and making the building as pleasing for what there is there. Did somebody else have a question? Batzli: Yeah. How willing are you to change the architectural style of a Hardee's to match the existing buildings and that type of thing? Run Ohe: I'm not an architect and certainly we will allow the architect to have some license to see if there can be some uniformity. We don't think, again that's our opinion, that we have an obtrusive looking building. The style, the architecture of the building has changed dramatically over the last 10 years and if any of you have had an opportunity to be in the more recent Hardee's that have been built, namely Brooklyn Center, you would see the new prototype if you will of what Hardee's is. It isn't he orange mansured roof anymore and so forth. That stuff's been toned down. There's a lot more glass. There's the atriums and so forth that has become prevalent in the later 80's and we've adapted in that way and I think, I don't think it's, again I may be redundant but I don't think it's a bad looking building. From a fast food standpoint, it's a good looking bUilding. Batzli: I don't think that's the issue so much as we're looking at a PUD. The whole thing is supposed to be unified. Planned together. It's supposed to blend in. Look like it all belongs and the question isn't' that the building looks nice or bad, the question is are you willing to submit yoursGlf to a PUD process where we might want you to look like the building the proposed car wash and not like a Hardee's. Run Ohe: There are certainly Hardee's. Redwing for example, if anybody's been to Redwing. It's in an old railroad depot and Duluth they just redid an old warehouse district down where Granny's starts their races and a good looking facility. We're not saying that we're not opposed to looking at that possibility. I don't k~ow what's going to happen to the Hanus building. I don't know what's going to happen to the car wash. Do we want to look like a car wash or the Hanus building or do we want to look like a Hardee's? Any other questions? Conrad: No. Not right now. Any other public comments? Anything? Is there a motion to close the public hearing? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 47 Wildermuth: I'll move. Batzli: Second. Wildermuth moved, Batzli seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. Conrad: Well we've made our comments to start out with but I think let's quickly go back through here. I think does the process call is, you are looking for a yea or nay motion on this particular plan and regardless, it will go to City Council at this point in time. It doesn't come back to us first. It goes to City Council right after our approval or disapproval? Krauss: Yes. If you vote yea or nay on it, it will go up to the City Council. You could also continue it if there's something you're looking for . Conrad: We could continue it if we were looking for more information. Emmings: If we don't do a report in 60 days, then the City Council can proceed without us and I guess maybe part of what the general concept plan is, it says it's an opportunity to the applicant to submit a plan to the City showing the basic intent and general nature of the entire development without incurring substantial cost. Conrad: It reminds me of a sketch plan. Emmings: It is. That's what it is. And I think we've got to keep that in mind. We're looking at this in a very general way. Not specifically really at this plan that much. Conrad: Okay, let's go back through. Tim, any further comments over and beyond? Erhart: Well, as I stated before, I think it's an appropriate place to look at a PUD. In going back I think, going back to downtown redevelopment. I think one of the things that would have been very helpful when that whole thing was brought to Planning Commission. I was just new at that time and pretty confused and I think Brad was up at that one too and the thing kind of flowed through here and everybody was looking at each other. Brad's a pretty convincing guy and we tend to deal more with residential subdivisions than downtown issues. I think in retrospect it would have really helped at that time I think, if we could have caught some things that we overlooked. It would have had either a joint meeting with HRA or some representative from HRA to come in and kind of give us their view of that and I think that would be appropriate for this. I guess I would like to, being that we don't have a lot of experience in viewing downtown development as opposed to residential subdivisions, I'd like to have that before. We could perhaps do it in parallel with proceeding or whatever but I'd like to get that input at some time early on...for such a long period of time. Batzli: So you'd like Clark or someone to come in here and tell us what Planning Commission Meeting 3uly 18, 1990 - Page 48 their thinking is on this parcel and how it fits in? Erhart: Yeah. Or an official representative of the HRA or perhaps some kind of a joint meeting or something. That's complicated. Conrad: Their job is not to say this is the right design. Their job is to try to encourage development and make it financially feasible so they're not the planners, designers as such as they are the economic motivaters. Erhart: Yeah, and [ think Brad's phasing, he's trying to sell us on to get enthusiastic about this because it's good for the city in the next 10 years and I think, I guess I'd like to get the second opinion. Does the HRA believe this is good for the city for the next 10 years? I guess if HRA comes in here and says yeah, this makes sense to them, who've got a lot more experience in this, than I think we ought to try to rev our enthusiasm up and let's attack it. If HRA comes in here and says, kind of cold thumb it, then I guess I'd have a hard time getting excited. Conrad: Then you'd feel comfortable then letting it develop piece by piece which as Brad said it sure can do. Erhart: It could happen. Conrad: It will. Emmings: It won't be easy Conrad: Oh sure. I think so. Erhart: You've got the coverage problem. Emmings: I don't think it's going to be this dense. Conrad: That's true. Steve, any? Emmings: No. I'm perfectly, maybe what the HRA has to say and what we have to say come together at the City Council and so I'm perfectly content to see this go up to the City Council and see what they have to say. If they want to approve this as a general plan and then we can get down to specifics, that's okay with me. Conrad: Annette? Ellson: Nothing new. Conrad: Brian. Batzli: I liked Tim's idea to have a joint meeting with the HRA. Their thoughts so I'd like to eventually move that we table this until we can have the joint meeting within 60 days and marshall our enthusiasm if in fact this is best for the City. Conrad: 3im. Planning Commission Meeting 3uly 18, 1990 - Page 49 Nildermuth: I'd like to table it and I'd like to see some calculations on density and it would be interesting to see the project traffic study and what can be done with the intersection there on TH 101. Conrad: Joan. Ahrens: Nell I guess I would agree to .tabling it. I mean there's a lot of questions that I have about this that weren't answered and I'm not prepared to vote on anything tonight. Conrad: Yeah, I have the same problem Brad. Brad, I have a real tough time. For the benefits of being a PUD, it's hard for us to visualize the benefits right now. The benefits are wrapped up in landscaping and design. They're not wrapped up into a perfect PUD as such you know. You're dealing, you've got constraints all over the place so you've got the Hanus building there and it looks like to me, and this is obviously a lay opinion, it looks like there are 4 properties here that could have developed just that way independently but what you're selling are some things that we haven't seen tonight and therefore it's hard to get real excited and jump on the PUD bandwagon which is a little bit of what you're selling. You're obviously selling some other things too but I just have, I don't mind the Hardee's going in there as long as the traffic takes care of it. I don't mind Gary Brown moving his car wash anyplace that is legal. That's fine with me. I don't mind a retail facility back there. That's okay. Those are all permitted uses. They all work. But what I don't see are some, and quote unquote, I'm not sure what I'm looking for as the gateway to Chanhassen. Ne get back into this quick gateway issue and I'm not sure there ever will be or that it means a whole lot to Chanhassen. I think but it still looks like we've got a lot of lot coverage in a very little area. It looks real dense and I can't visualize how we make it attractive right now. I just can't do it. It looks like it's not what we're selling in the rest of downtown so somehow I need to be persuaded at some point in time that this is really a dynamite PUD that really is an attractive entrance to downtown. Right now it looks to me, there are 4 permitted uses and that's fine and they could be done as a regular, lots going in there and they don't need our approval. So I guess my comment is, I don't have a problem with the PUD. I agree with most of staff's comments here in terms of some concerns but it's just hard to visualize the overall benefits that we're getting in terms of architecture. In terms of landscaping. In terms of this nice entrance to Chanhassen. I think lot coverage is my biggest issue right now. It looks like 90~ impervious surface and I don't think it is but it's certainly not low. It's like we're cramming so much in then I worry what kind of entrance. What kind of visual that is to Chan so the comments here generally are let's table it. Let's get some more input from some folks. I don't know, what do you think Brad? Brad 3ohnson: Nell, let me tell you. One of the reasons you have density, I had the same problem when we did the apartment building over here, is you can't do it unless you have density. Density means more tax revenue. This is a tax revenue supported land so we come in there. Right now we're taking, for example this site from producing, assessed valuation of about Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 50 $500,000.00 and we're going to upgrade to 3 million. Okay? That means if it goes from generating about $25,000.00 a year in taxes to $150,000.00 a year in taxes. That's what the HRA gets interested in. That's what they get excited about. Okay? And because you generate, their job is to generate taxes. The density is needed in order to do the public portion of the job. I have to be able to add enough projects in there. I mean this is real life, to do it in 3 years increment which is another restraint that I have. I happen to have that 3 years of increment to use so I get about $300,000.00 or $400,000.00 of public assistance to do the job. That includes buying out the current car wash...8 or 9, and these are just the numbers. The current car wash cost if you look in the public record is $180 , 000 . 00 on it's own. I've got to take that down so to throw it all away to do this and we don't need to do it but that's the public lot so the HRA looks at me and says fine. It's fine if you do that if you generate enough and guarantee it, enough new projects on this site to pay for it. They don't spend money that we don't pay in taxes. You see that's the Catch-22. Erhart: Brad I've got a question. Did I understand the fellow, Ron from Hardee's say that they were willing just to buy the car wash and build anyway or did I miss something? Ron Ohe: See the problem is he's not willing to sell. Brad 3ohnson: He's not willing to sell. Erhart: He's not willing to sell unless you move him? Brad 3ohnson: Right. And you have to find the increment to do it. Erhart: The other thing I'd like to clear up. I'm real excited about having a Hardee's in this location so Ron, I don't know you stated that you heard negative. I don't think so. Brad 3ohnson: $o where I 'm coming from is that in the HRA side of the world we have to generate, and the town is getting more and more restrictive. Not more relaxing on how much money they make available for these kinds of projects. They're trying to get everything to 3 years. Well, that's tough to do. Erhart: Have you been working with the HRA on this? Brad Johnson: For a year. Erhart: Okay, so if someone were to come in. Brad Johnson: What hurt me is, they're looking for input from you. Okay? If you read this whole thing, we've been through this with the HRA and they're wondering what you think about it. Now where you say you'd like to see it improved and be less dense and all this kind of stuff, I don't have any problem with that if I could figure out how to do it financially. And if all of a sudden the Planning Commission said that this is a high priority thing for the City, the HRA should make money available to do it, Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 51 we'd probably be doing it a different way but right now I'm kind of restricted from what I can actually do. Okay? Now we could leave, I don't know if Ron would agree to this. t could leave the car wash there. Vacate the street and I save a lot of money alright? We could put a Hardee's in there without anywhere near the density you see because I wouldn't have to build the new car wash. These are all little business issues we've had to go through. ~Jhat you see there is a plan that Mr. Brown's agreed to and Hardee's has agreed to. Okay? In that order. And if I don't have their agreement, then the HRA has to condemn the car wash and kiss it good-bye and maybe they're willing to do that. Then we don't put a new car wash in there. I mean these are the problems I'm faced with and these are all sort of political at that point. There is no car wash there anymore. ~4e have a nice site for a restaurant and we put one in there because we still have to have a buyer. A tenant and we're sitting on this thing for 2 or 3 years. ~Je're to the point now that we just have to do something and what we're going to do, I mean I know what we're going to do so I can't take a tabling. Okay? Because we don't have the time. Right now we're into our eighth month of this discussion with the City trying to work through the process. $o if it's tabled, I think we're just pulling the deal and we're going to go do something else. I don~t think the tabling process is what's supposed to happen here. I think it's just supposed to go to the City Council and if the City Council says yeah, Brad go ahead and do it, I'll go ahead and do it because I know they have the votes okay? I mean if they say this is what we want done, then I've got to come back to you and get a plan right? But I know, this is the process I'm supposed to go through. And I hear what you're saying and I'd like to address all your issues. I just don't know if I can. The density issue okay? And still finance the project. Maybe the HRA can figure that out because you've got to set the priorities that you'd like, how you'd like to see it. I think if you came to the HRA through the Council and said this is what we'd like to have this look like, we'd work on it. I mean as long as somebody helped us finance it, okay? Then, so I think as I understand the concept plans you vote yea or nay. You like it or you don't like it. It should be or should not be a PUD. They've got about 10 reservations there that I thought were legit things. We don't agree with a couple of them. Maybe there's a couple other ones. It goes onto the Council and at that point we run into a stone wall in there, whether the HRA wants to do it or not, we won't. Normally we always had the HRA approve the project first in total design and then brought it through. If you recall correctly because the HRA does have the design control over this. They have to approve design. That's their role. I mean you recommend but they have the killing effect on the deal where you have TIF and I admit this is a tough deal to do. I'm not comfortable doing it except I don't know, my other choice is to just let it go back and do 3 things and if that's what you guys want, that's fine with me. But it took us a long time to get it assembled. The next time around the city cost of this would be 4 or 5 times what we, you know the City cost to buy this on a condemnation process would be enormous. -Well, okay? $o I would just like to see it go on to the Council and if they are like you are, procedurally, I think that's the right procedure. You're not voting on anything that technically affects it are you? Conrad: We have to. Ne have to vote yea or nay. Brad 3ohnson: That's all we ask for. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 52 Erhart: Yeah I know but what we've got here is essentially you've got, well I don't know. Is there a detailed bunch of... Conrad: But anytime we vote yea or nay, we sure have the option of tabling. If we don't feel we... Brad 3ohnson: I don't know about in this particular process you do or not. That's why. Emmings: No, we clearly can. The thing is, if we don't act within 60 days, you can ask the City Council to act without our recommendation but I totally agree with Brad. I think we should vote on this and get it onto the City Council and find out what they think because it seems to me that what the general concept plan stage does is do exactly what Brad is saying. It's a basic intent and a very general nature of the entire development. Getting specific information is required later at the development stage at which time we still have every opportunity to say no to the project. Erhart: But Steve that's not what the staff recommends though. I mean read the recommendation here. It says that the proposed Chanhassen. Emmings: When do we ever listen to a staff recommendation? Erhart: 8e given PUD concept plan approval contingent upon all these list of things. I mean we're getting pretty dog gone specific and I guess if we're just going to say here okay, yeah. We think it's a great idea to look at this as a PUD period, fine. ISm ready to vote on it. But if we're going to get into details in here and stuff, I'm not ready to vote on it. Batzli: Well t think we can clearly change the staff recommendation. Ellson: We don't have to say with 7 conditions. We can just say in general. Erhart: General thing, I think it's a good idea to look at the areas. Emmings: See when I read that I took it to mean we're going to give this general approval and these are areas that we think need attention. Maybe among others so I didn't read those as specific conditions so much as staff drawing their attention to what things have to be looked at to get approval later on at the development stage. $o I don't know, that's the way I look at it. I think tabling it is not appropriate. I really don't. Conrad: Given what the purpose of this sketch plan is. Emmings: Don't say that. Conrad: But it's treated. It should not be a detailed deal and I'd prefer to move it on also but with our specific concerns and they're not all the ones that the staff has outlined here. Does somebody. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 53 Ellson: So is the idea we're just basically going to say, we approve the concept of a PUD and say nothing about conditions and they just have our Minutes for some of our concerns? Conrad: Well, I think we can pick and choose what we want of the staff recommendations to go forward and then any others that we brought up but I still, we have a choice. We don't have to say we like this. I think we can very easily say we like the concept of a PUD with certain conditions. Emmings: Or say, we like the general idea of a PUD and ask the City Council if this is the direction the City Council deems appropriate for this piece of land. Then send it back to the developer and us and we'll make it as nice a plan as we can. Conrad: But you know I don't know that I care about what they consider right for this piece of land. Ellson: Right. That's why we recommend first. Conrad: That's why I want to know what we consider right for this land. If we think this is the right density for this and the right design and if we're comfortable, than I don't even care what they think. I really don't. Erhart: Not comfortable. I'm not comfortable with getting into these specifics when I'm not comfortable with the whole thing. I mean we can talk about backing out of a parking spot but it's meaningless in my mind today because I'm not comfortable with the whole thing. The only thing I'm comfortable with today is that yeah, let's deal with it as a PUD. I think that's a good idea. Conrad: Yeah. How much further can you go? Erhart: I need more sell. I need to be sold. I need to see some elevations and some drawings and some other things. Conrad: Are they elevations basically from the road? Are you concerned about visual appearance from TH 5? Erhart: Yeah. Some more details on traffic and the whole thing. Conrad: But those details come later on Tim in this process. It's like we go back to the sketch plan that I like to call it. The general plan as it is called. It's sort of the time that they come in and say what do you think guys, and women? Do you kind of like this idea and then we say, well yeah but the lots are a little bit too small and we'd like to add here and there without real specifics so the developer can go back and maybe massage that. But the developer, I'm not sure if I'm building any consensus right now. I might be destroying it. Ahrens: Well I like the idea of a PUD but if this is what we have to accept as a PUD, then I'd rather see it developed iodividually. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990- Page 54 Conrad: Okay, let's do this. If we wanted this developed as a PUD, what would we like to see changed on this plan? Ahrens: Do we have to do that now? Conrad: Don't, no. Emmings: See I don't think you can say that until you know more specifics about what it's going to look like and see the numbers in there and their final plan. I think that's real hard. As soon as you ask that question, then I want to see more detail before I give my answer and this is not I think the stage for that. Conrad: So basically, what do you want to tell City Council? You don't want to tell them that we don't know. We don't know what we want to do. Erhart: I'm very interested in working on it as a PUB. Emmings: I don't mind. It'd be honest. Batzli: Well I think we want it to develop uniformily. I think for the most part we want to see it as a uniform, nice gateway to the City. Ellson: And Mom and Apple Pie. Batzli: Well no but I mean, it'd be nice if it had a cohesive look instead of the north of Eden Prairie Center look which in my mind isn't cohesive at all. It's a bunch of buildings put together. Automotive shop here. Crown Auto there. Midas shop there. You know and I don't think it really ties together very nicely. Conrad: Is this tied together nicely that we see in front of us? Batzli: We don't know. I mean that's where I think you need to look at the elevations and things but that's later down the road and I.'m almost starting to agree that let's just say yeah. We'd like to look at this as PUD and then they come in with all the information that we need and we approve it or don't approve it but, you're right. We don't have enough information in front of us to say this is cohesive. No it isn't cohesive at this point. Ahrens: Well how valuable is it to the City Council that we say yes, we'd like to look at it in a PUD? Conrad: Yeah, that seems like no input whatsoever. Emmings: Well the other choice we have is simply to pass it on with a negative recommendation. Ahrens: Yeah, I think that's what we should do. This is not what we want. Either it's because we don't want the specifics or we don't have enough information to say yes. I don't think we're giving them anything by just saying we like the idea of a PUD. That means nothing. It's meaningless. Planning Commission Meeting 2uly lB, 1990- Page $5 Emmings: It has a certain charm. Conrad: Joan, you've been negative on everything tonight. I'm glad I'm not on the agenda. Brad 3ohnson: As a point of order, I just have to deai with this. Ne are following your procedures. Okay? And you are supposed to vote on it today with your procedure. We're following it. We don't like the procedure either. Paul doesn't like the procedure but your procedure is, we bring a concept to you. You pass it on and then we come back and give you all the information you're looking for· Emmings: We understand that. Brad 3ohnson: No, I don't think but that's, we don't hear that. ~4e're sitting out here saying, wait a minute. We have done what we're supposed to do as far as information. Now you can say we reject this as a PUD. That's fine· Batzli: That's what we're talking about right now Brad. Brad 3ohnson: But you're saying you reject it because you don't have enough information. We've given you all the information we were required to at that point. That's all I'm saying. Conrad: No, we understand that. Emmings: We're on the same wavelength· Brad 3ohnson: Okay. Conrad: That's real clear Ellson: Then let's do that. That we reject this individual with the information that we have as a PUD. Erhart: That's what he's saying you can't do. You can't reject it based on. Ellson: Batz 1 i: NO , no. She's saying she's going to reject it on the information we have. Erhart: That you can do. Ellson: Which is fine. Come back with more and they can look at it. Brad Johnson: You can't do it. You're saying come back with elevations and that stuff. Ellson: No, I'm saying that it goes on to City Council and if they want it. Go ahead then it will be back with City Council's approval. That's what I'm saying. Not you'll be back because we tabled it o¥ anything like Planni~g Commission Meeting 3u1¥ 18, 1990 - Page 56 that. It will come around. Wildermuth: I would reject it based on density. Period. Conrad: Okay, is there a motion? Ellson: Go for it 3oan. Ahrens: You were the last to speak. Ellson: It was youT idea. Ahrens: I move that the Planning Commission, I don't have my thing in front of me. I move that the Planning Commission not recommend the proposed Chanhassen Auto Service Center PUD concept plan as submitted. that sufficient? Ellson: And I'll second it. Ahrens moved, Ellson seconded that the Planning Commission not recommend approval of the proposed Chanhassen Auto Service Center PUD Concept Plan as submitted. Ahrens, Ellson, Conrad and Wildermuth voted in favor. Batzli and Erhart voted in opposition. Emmings abstained and the motion carried with a vote of 5 to 2. Conrad: The rationale for the turndown on a 5 to 2 vote. Emmings: I haven't voted yet. I need some time to think about this. I'm just going to sit this out. I'm going to abstain. Conrad: You abstain. 4 to 2. Batzli: Geez, I hope you didn't do closing arguments in a trial today. You've been wishy washy all night. I can just picture it. Your Honor. I don't know whether to find them negligent or not. Forget it. Conrad: So the reason, let me see if I can summarize. The reason for turning it down at this point in time are as follows. Density. Seems like too dense a development. Nildermuth: Number one. Ellson: It's something that Chanhassen gets from a PUD. The trade-off. The PUD trade-off is the other thing that we're looking for. Conrad: The benefits that Chanhassen is deriving from the PUD. Emmings: Yeah, because the intent of the PUD plan is to encourage creative site planning and subdivisions of high quality. Ellson: So we're looking for that too. Those are the two biggies. Conrad: Anything else? The reasons for those who voted for it are what? PIanning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 57 Erhart: I was convinced at the end that it was general approval of a PUD concept and that I guess I was convinced that it would all come back and then we'd dig into it. What I was really voting for was a general approval of PUD and not much else. Conrad: And Brian you voted for against the motion. Batzli: In essence I would have recommended that we approve it as a conceptual sketch of a PUD in this area. I think I would have liked to have seen what the improvements Chanhassen got included. For instance, redoing the existing building. Moving the car wash in. I think that helps the gateway aspect of the city. I would have liked to have seen additional info~mation and the only way we're going to see that is if either, well is if the City Council approves it so they can dig in and generate the information. Emmings: You want to know why I abstained? Ellson: No thank you. Erhart: If you can't make up your mind, we don't want to hear it. Emmings: Are you going to ask me why I abstained? Conrad: No. It's personal. Emmings: No it's not. Because I agree with everybody. Conrad: So this item will go to the City Council August 13th? Okay. OPEN DISCUSSION: Krauss: Hr. Chairman? At this point we've had two gentleman waiting here to speak to you this evening to show you or discuss with you the concept plan that they developed for Sunridge Court that I bad passed out earlier. Mr. Alvey is here to give you a brief discussion of that. I did pass out copies of that earlier. Emmings: Does he know what action we've taken already? Krauss: No. Emmings: Because it's going to satisfy some of his. Krauss: Well you might want to discuss it. No, he was not aware of the work session. Conrad: Do we have .the plan that we can show him? Basically we met for 2 hours earlier tonight talking about the Comprehensive Plan and in that time, as of the Commission, we decided to change the property to the north of you to residential and up to what point Paul? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 58 Krauss: Basically it's the Gram's property with that north fence line of the Gram's being the break point with the area north of there to remain pretty much largely as it's shown. Some of your ideas would, this idea over here was not thought of very well because of Timberwood but some of the property over here was looked at and as I understand the motion, those two parcels would be brought, well this one which is totally excluded, that will be brought in as an industrial site. This ode south, the one where the dirt's being hauled out. The black dirt, would be brought in. Those basically make up the loss of this. The buffer yard would be brought around through here and up below the balance of Audubon. It would also be brought along through here behind the wetland because the wetland Gives a physical separation with a lot of trees. Jerry Alvey: The buffer yard? Krauss: As we envision it, what we've discussed so far is a strip of land dedicated solely to landscape screening. In areas where you're faced against residential we put numbers down and we figured it would be lO0 feet wide and areas up against the road would be 50 feet wide. Setbacks from new development would be measured beyond that so the strip of land is permanently dedicated... Developers would be required to install it. Conrad: So in light of that, maybe you can direct your comments with that in mind. Jerry Alvey: On the Gram area, this one here... is residential and these two areas remain with 50. Krauss: Well 50 over here'. 100 here. 100 here. okay, so from here down Jerry Alvey: Okay, I guess in effect I am representing approximately 55 households, none of which are in the Lake Susan area and I don't know how the would respond to this 50 foot buffer zone. It gives them something but I'm not sure if that will be deemed appropriate or not so I can't comment on that at this point in time. The buffer zone with landscaping is an excellent concept but I can tell you my concern with that. This area here, if you look at it is approximately 969-970 feet high. This area here is 970 feet high. This area in here, which this is not trees. This is flat. This area is approximately 100 feet lower. In terms of screening, I would question the efficacy of any type of screening in this area visually when it's being looked at from 100 feet down. I certainly am pleased with this. I'm pleased with this. I think that I'm happy with that. AGain, I can't comment on this. This area with respect to the screening. It disturbs me a little bit. One of the concerns that I have, not so much a concern but a request. In looking at the proposed area S, when I mentioned this to Paul a little bit earlier, 5 is going to go to 4 lanes which is approximately a freeway. One way or another it's $5 mph for 4 lanes and I know that very few people residentially like to have their home that close to that type of a road. I was wondering why these areas here would be considered to be residential right next to the road where areas that have certain amenities that don't have this proximity to a 4 lane road would be considered industrial. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990- Page 59 Ellson: That's medium density right? Krauss: Well it's medium density which allows you to do lot more intensive landscaping...highway. You take out the physical separation of the highway by this frontage road which is pushing things further north. Up in here too you have a lot of terrain and trees that tend to bring you away. In addition too there's a real concern that you consign all frontage on all highways over to non-residential uses. We end up with strip rows or corridors. Early on the Planning Commission discussed a number of instances where residential was developed effectively near highways and decided that forcing it, if you will, was appropriate in several places. That being one of them. Jerry Alvey: I can't say I'm totally pleased with that because I still, as I stand back and I look at this, I see kind of a strip development that has kind of a...aspect to it here and we're hoping to get a large residential concept in here which would kind of balance the residential and see if there's, since there doesn't seem to be any industrial office to the north of TH 5, that site seems to be saying... Doug Barinsky: Just a procedural question on your changes that you suggested tonight. Do you go back now~ and redraw it and then make that available to the public to see what suggestions~-~'and revisions? Conrad: What we're saying right now is that we're going to present it. We've heard different comments from all sectors of Chanhassen and we're making our minds up as to what to present in a public hearing. What we just did in the area that you're concerned about, that's what we're going to present. It doesn't mean it doesn't change from that after a public hearing but we're not. Doug Barinsky: I understand. That is the next step? Conrad: The public hearing, right. Doug Barinsky: It's a procedural question. Jerry Alvey: Because I would be interested in some of the boundaries for the proposed buffers actually are. It's not clear where that is... If buildings were actually, industrial were actually to be put on the crest of the hill and that might be something that any amount of screening would not cover. Krauss: The top of the hill is right in here and Ron Gram's house is somewhat down here a little ways...so I think visually there's... You know where your home is, you're up higher looking across but as you move to the north and south, and on the west side of Audubon it's actually higher over there so just because you're pushing the uses beyond that... Jerry Alvey: That may well be effective because I'm concerned about this strip in here as well .... interested where those boundaries fall and t can't really comment. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 60 Krauss: Wei1 we wiiI be making up new maps. We had a Iist of about 10 issue areas for the Planning Commission to take a look at. We didn't finish them. I've got to meet with them again to finish that before we do the map but we will generate a new map. Jerry Alvey: Alright. Thank you. Conrad: Thanks for coming in. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Batzli moved, Emmings seconded to approve the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated 3une 20, 1990 as presented. Ail voted in favor except Tim Erhart, Annette Ellson and 3is Witdermuth who abstained and the motion carried. ONGOING ITEMS: ' COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. Conrad: On we want to go back? Emmings: Yeah. Let's get them done so we don't have to come back next week. Conrad: Let's see. We'll give you 15 minutes Paul. Emmings: Are there some we can get rid of real quick? Are there some that are easier than others? 1995 study area. Let's do that one. Krauss: Okay, 1995 study areas. Tim and some of the residents have raised questions about what we intend to do with the rest of the city and it's a valid question. I think it would not be inappropriate for us to go through a preliminary design process for the study areas basically so people know what we're expecting. What I've indicated through is that at this point, throwing that into the mix is really going to bollex up the schedule and what I would visualize, I would hope that you might agree to is if we are to launch a study effort for those study areas, and I would support doing that, that we try to track that after we're done with this comprehensive plan and that it be kind of an ongoing program. Emmings: I agree. I think that's the right approach. I think we should leave them as 1995 study areas and then jump on that as soon as we get done with this process. Ellson: I agree. Ahrens: I agree. Batzli: I personally think we should somehow strongly indicate that portions of those will be commercial during this process. Emmings: Okay, you're assuming people are so dense that when they see a piece of property on the corner of two highways they won't figure that out. Planning Commission Meeting July lB, 1990- Page 61 Batzli: Yes. Ellson: Yeah but still, I think that's why we're saying study 'area because we're not promising that and someone's going to jump on us for that exact reason. We have it shaded purple over there. Emmings: Okay, what do you think we ought to do? Just say it's possible that this one on the north side. Batzli: Potential commercial areas within the study areas. That's all you've got to say. Emmings: Fine. I'll vote for that. And then we'll study it after. Ellson: It's got the potential to be anything though. Batzli: I know but I want it to be clear to everybody that potentially commercial's going to go in those areas. Emmings: High potential for commercial development. Co nr ad: Yep. Krauss: Ne could add it to the key. Conrad: I think we should. Emmings: We've got to move forward right? Krauss: Right. I'll combine 6 and 7. How about that? Emm i rigs: Good. Krauss: And in fact I'll combine, we got a letter from Clark Horn tonight asking about the availability of commercial land down here on TH 101 and 212. It was Clark's belief, as I read the letter, that there was an insufficient supply of commercial around this intersection. A1 Klingelhutz has asked in the past that we consider this area around here, we're showing as townhomes...is also bisected by a wetland that's very difficult to develop and I think, is it office or something that you saw back there? A1 Klingelhutz: What I was looking at' this looks like a very smalI commercial area for a major interchange. To me it's sort of major, you count 86th Street here, you've got this wetland area in here and it's taking at least some of this. A nice buffer is there already. Across the street to separate from the medium density would make a lot of sense to include some of this in the commercial area. It wouldn't have a lot of acres but you end up with, you look at this narrow strip in the highway and a major interchange and a wetland area. It just seems to me that after looking at the walls that are along the highways, that you have a real nice buffer area back there and wouldn't need that wall in order to protect the noise from a major interchange. For residential. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 62 Emmings: Al, would you just stay and restate what it is you want to change on the map? Conrad: He wants to add more commercial. More red. A1Klingelhutz: More commercial in this medium density here. Emmi ngs: Okay. A1Klingelhutz: Mixed use. Conrad: Extend the red to the east but still buffer from the commercial with a higher density and then moving into the lower density? So from the red to an orange. Krauss: Well this little pocket, you may get away without having the downsizing of a townhouse or something else. There is this street separation here. The trees start right about here and there's a problem. I mean it's going to be, commercial is not necessarily a bad idea. It's pretty marginal. It's a tough site to develop because of the wetland. Because of the frontage. If something were to develop there, it would probably not be terribly intense because of those limitatioD~. Now this figures in I think to an extent with Clark's letter which in general terms speaks about moving the commercial at that intersection. Also Brad 3ohnson gave us a letter about commercial at TH 101 in general. I guess, I don't know how you want to take that but there's quite a bit of mixed use land south of the intersection. We dwelled on that a little bit a long time ago. It used to be small areas where it was residential pocket... I think there's probably about 20-25 acres in there which is a considerable chunk of land. That's about as much land as is available for commercial use in the Ward property. At 25 acres you're talking about being able to accommodate a shopping center and parking. That's what they would have over here. Erhart: Paul, excuse me. You're saying that that area to the south and west is big enough to do a Target? Krauss: Yeah it is. Now it's not, presumably you'd prefer to have that on the north side where you get this traffic stream going into downtown and I don't know. You start running into, you certainly have got conflicts with residential areas...as you're getting up on the west side. Then you have difficult terrain in here. As you may recall a lot of that stuff was looked at with the 101 study that Fred Hoisington did about a year and a half ago and we pretty much adopted that as was proposed since it had been given some public input at that point in time. We have a large chunk of commercial on the Ward property and that represents a conversion of land that is currently, right here. That land is currently guided through industrial use as being changed by this plan to commercial primarily because of the relocation of TH 101. So you have a significant site there. You have a significant site there and whatever you modify over here. I guess personally I'd be relunctant to do too much more commercial. I don't know how much the City could support but Brad may have some feelings about that too. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 63 Batzli: When is the plan, the building of that whole interchange? Krauss: They're supposed to in 1993-94 is supposed to be the start of construction. 1996-97 out here. Completion. A1Klingelhutz: I know they're in the public hearings are going to be out ...some of this right along here. Erhart: Yeah, I think that intersection completion is scheduled for 1997. A1 Klingelhutz: About 95-97. Someone told me it's supposed to be completed up to Lyman Blvd. but I've got to see that. I'll feel lucky if it's the year 2000 .... I've got a barn and creamery and machine shed and all those things there now. You've got a little thin strip of... I know the building's aren't going to be there forever. If you look at this real narrow strip here and can angle that off a little bit and it makes it more feasible for any kind of a site. High density here and high density here and here you've got a little corner in here that you want single family residence. It's just something that struck me a little odd in looking at this little corner. I kind of look at this as something that we talked about earlier. You zone it medium density with the right kind of development and people all around here think it's going to be some kind of residential. Here comes a developer in that wants 20-25 acres for a real good commercial thing and you change the zoning and everybody that was told hey, this will all be residential, even if it's medium density. And you've pushed this boundary out towards the single family, the problem you're going to have in the future are going to be exactly what you'Ve been having when you changed the zoning on what you're talking about. Emmings: We'll always have those problems. There's no way to get away from them. A1Klingelhutz: If they wouldn't go for that sometime in the future it'd be a lot easier to balance... Conrad: Going back to the northeast part there. Did we want, do we feel comfortable changing it to a mixed use or are we comfortable keeping it the way it is? Krauss: The area, if I can outline it is basically this orange clump that wraps around that red. Emmings: I like the medium density in there myself. The only thing, if it makes sense because of the location of that pond to push the commercial between the pond and the highway rather than having that be medium residential like he suggested, that could make sense. I think we're getting down to real fine stuff here. Al Klingelhutz: I would be satisfied with that because over here there's going to be some single family and I think the medium density would be a good buffer there but up to this point right here, I just feel it should be something else because you've got a good buffer there already. You've got Planning Commission Meeting July lB, 1990 - Page 64 the road... Batzli: You're really looking for mixed use there though? A1Klingelhutz: Or mixed use. Emmings: That'd be okay too. As I understand it, mixed use either gives you residential high density or commercial. A1Klingelhutz: Or office. Conrad: Mixed use is not bad. Erhart: Gives us some flexibility later on. Conrad: Sure does. Ellson: I think as long as we're protecting the yellow, that's what I would go for. Batzli: I would prefer to see it mixed use than force it to go commercial. Emmings: Bring the red along the highway? Krauss: This orange would be mixed use. Ahrens: No, not the whole orange. Ellson: But not all the orange. Stop it at the end. Krauss: Right here? Ahrens: No, no, no. That little corner, yeah. Krauss: This corner here? Ellson: Yes so that the people in the yellow don't have a potential of having commercial next. Brad 3ohnson: Is there some reason why you don't to use the orange there? A1Klingelhutz: Well I don't know. Brad 3ohnson: This particular corner is probably the most valuable corner for commercial in Carver County because this will be your high traffic area. Developers such as myself, as soon as that is available and this is set, we're talking the year 2005, 2010. Conrad: You'll be retired by then. Brad 3ohnson: What I'm saying is, as I look at this, this corner will be commercial in the year 2010, year 2020 no matter what you do today because it's going to be the highest traffic area in Chanhassen and it's going to Planning Commission Heeting July 18, 1990 - Page 65 connect to the downtown and we in the downtown want the people to make the turn and come this way rather than drive down here or be picked up here in some other city. They're not talking about tomorrow. We're talking about the time to come back and redo that area after you guys have done it because once there's, well 20,000 cars a day going through here, sooner or later somebody will start buying up the houses and farms and speculating and doing whatever is necessary to do it. Maybe. Unless you build some... I don't know, did you say that the soil conditions and stuff up here in this orange aren't. A1Klingelhutz: No, that's good soil. Brad 3ohnson: That's the best place in the world where right now it's vacant. There's nothing there. Okay. To me that whole area will be a perfect shopping center site and I don't own anything. I'm just telling you. Ellson: But we've already got comments from people that are living there. Brad Johnson: But you only at the present time have 10 people living there on this side of the street. Ahrens: But then they wouldn't make the turn and' go down into downtown Chanhassen if they stopped at the commercial. Brad 3ohnson: But this group isn't going to go to downtown Chanhassen anyway. But the people who live in downtown Chanhassen are going to turn to go this way and that's just going to generate traffic. By that time, this will all be filled. The way a site will have to be, the site's will...the one that may fall out is this corner over here because this corner will become so strong and then the Eckankar site's, the south side of Eckankar which today would appear to be a very ~ood commercial corner, may not be. I think that should be mixed use too all the way to the church personally because it could happen that this is high traffic. What you've got to look out for is you don't have enough land in the year 2019 or 2020 so you force commercial development out here if that's what you don't want to do and there are communities today that don't have, look at Eden Prairie as planned very cautiously to make sure that all commercial land around Eden Prairie Center. That was their plan. It's frustrating for us developers because you go to preserve and there is no land. You go to TH 4 and 5 and there's no land so anything that's commercial in Eden Prairie has to be downtown which is called Eden Prairie and that's what their plan is. They set it up so that that, isn't that right Paul? I mean that's the way it's set up. The core and development concept and that's what you're saying you'd like to do. We don't have enough land in downtown Chanhassen to take care of that. Okay? Long term and once this is in, is the major shopping center. The Target's and stuff like that, once this road is in, this is where they're going to be looking. On this corridor. Right? I don't see them looking in the downtown area. I think we like that and by that time what we've got in downtown is pretty well developed. Maybe it only develops south of CR 17. Okay? And then it's going to move this way. The only way you're going to set that up is maybe just make that a part of, because what you're talking about is a conceptual' plan right? Someone has Planning Commission Meeting July lB, 1990 - Page 66 to come in and buy this. We know that may be 10 to 20 years away before anybody builds there but the other alternative... Conrad: You know, we've got a study area Brad that's right below that. Brad 3ohnson: Just excuse me, this is not a good corner. Conrad: Right. Brad 3ohnson: On the right hand side...where the Rainbow is as you come through. If you're on the left hand side is a non-commercial corner normally. It's just the rules of the game. Right hand corner, this side and this side are where the developers want to be. They do not want to be left. Emmings: But if you don't give them the right, will they take the left? Brad 3ohnson: They'll go down, they could go someplace else. Emmings: If you don't give them the right, will they take the left as a second choice? Brad Johnson: Let's look at TH 101 and TH 7. Emmings: No, you've made the statement that they want the right and I'm asking you if they can't have the right, will they take the left. Brad 3ohnson: ...until they find the right. Emmings: Even if it's out in Norwood or Young America? Brad 3ohnson: You don't have to go...the competition is what does Eden Prairie do upstream and what does Chaska do downstream. They're not very far away in freeway miles. Emmings: I don't have any doubt that you're right and that these are rules of thumb. I know you're speaking very generally it's just that I have a hard time believing that if that right hand corner isn't available, that the left hand corner wouldn't be a pretty attractive alternative. Brad 3ohnson: Down here? Emmings: Yeah. Brad 3ohnson: I'm just asking, why wouldn't this be available? Emmings: Well we have single family residential in right behind it right now. Right? Brad Johnson: Well yeah but this is one big parcel. It's one farm. One house. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 67 Erhart: What is that now Paul? That dog leg parcel there. What is that now? A1 Klingelhutz: This is all tilled field going up to TH 101 here. Ellson: The orange. What about the yellow next to that? A1 Klingelhutz: Right, the orange is all tilled. Emmings: So it's open field ail the way back to those homes now? A1Klingelhutz: Right. Open field. Grass. Part of it's grass. Part of it's soy bean. Emmings: Well one thing we could do would be to move that orange into that yellow area that's now a plowed field and make the entire orange and red area mixed use. Brad Johnson: I think mixed use is an out because it could be office buildings. You're not going to get single family homes in there. Krauss: Could I offer a counter point? We're talking about a community that in 15 or 20 years may have a population of about 30,000 whereas Eden Prairie's looking at a population of about 60,000. We have ample room for shopping centers in town. In downtown in C80. We have the Ward property. We're looking possibly south of TH 2t2 in the future. That's another one. We're looking possibly if you buy Mills Fleet Farm and nobody has yet, another one out there. I really begin to question in people's mind, how much do you really need to support this community and support the businesses in the community and to provide services for the residents? We really tried not to go overboard. I mean we've had landowners and developers telling us that industrial's a great use for their property and they know and they're got a tenant for it if we just say yes. And repeatedly you've said well, that really doesn't matter. That's just not in the best interest of the community. Having a commercial strip road on TH 101 between the downtown and TH 212 isn't what was envisioned when TH 101 relocation was proposed. I guess I would advocate caution. Brad Johnson: Well my point is, you've got the time to doing it. I'm just saying, if you had to do it and you didn't have any other input from neighborhoods and stuff like that, which you do get, that's just a good corner. As is the corner where the Eckankar site is potentially. There are no other corners on TM 212 until you get to Chaska and Pioneer Road and then there's a good corner...at CR 17 and Pioneer. There's a 40 acre site there. It's zoned commercial. That's what, down the road 2 miles? Conrad: After TH 101 Paul, is there an interchange on 2127 Krauss: On 17 which is smack in the middle of this study area. Now it's a long way down the road but it presumably does provide another opportunity. A1 Klingelhutz: If you're going like Brad says, I guess that orange area what's in red there now, would count as something. 25 acres. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 68 Brad Johnson: If you said this was mixed use and you left this yellow in here as a buffer, that's a lot of space. I mean that's empty right now. Erhart: That's the Hallahaven Farm right now? Brad Johnson: Yeah. This is where that little stable is up on the hill here where that horse. A1 Klingelhutz: This is the riding ring right here. And the buildings are right there. Brad 3ohnson: Yeah. So you've got about 25 acres on that corner that would support, we're on 10 acres across the street with Market Square'. I'm just giving you an example of size. That was for office buildings or something that would normally be on that kind of a corner. Ahrens: Really what are we deciding on? : Conrad: Well, we're looking at that interchange. Ellson: 6 and 7 we were looking at here. Brad Johnson: I think the key there is if you let the world know it's going to be that way, then it's okay. I don't really care. I'm just saying, I don't have any land. I don't have anything down there and I probably won't be around when it's developed. I'm just saying that that corner, you should just think about it before you. Conrad: Right now what we're thinking about is what we want to present to the public and we can come back and change that after the public hearing if we feel it's right. I guess let me try to close in on that. Does anybody want to expand the commercial into the high density, orange into the north off the interchange? Any feeling of doing that right now? Emmings: Expand it to the north? Conrad: Expanding it to the northeast. Batzli: I don't want to see that. Conrad: Okay. How many would like to take the high density residential or the higher density and turn that into the south, that we originally started discussing south of the, yeah. Right there. How many would like to put mixed use in? Ellson: I could do that. Conrad: I think we should do the mixed use there for sure. Still with a buffer to the east. Paul of a high density. Yeah. Emmings: Are you including a red in the mixed use? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 69 Conrad: The red is taken. Krauss: We can convert that all to mixed use. Ellson: Let's take the red and make it mixed use too. Yeah. Emmings: Then I agree. · . Erhart: The other one that I don't, why did we take Al's farmstead and make that single family in that kind of odd shaped line there in the corner surrounded by high density? Krauss: Well presumably TH 101 played, and I wasn't here but I thought it had to do with some realignment of streets. Some of the streets were going to be vacated back there. Al, do you remember? A1Klingelhutz: I don't recall exactly how that street was going to come in there. Ellson: There was a good reason though. Erhart: It just looks odd on this map. A1 Klingelhutz: ...off of here and hit this street someplace here... It just don't see quite right the way that narrow strip is there. You're putting 10 acres, or whatever this piece is and cut it off and figure well, those farm buildings and everything is going to stay just tike it is forever. But when you see how this is cut out. Conrad: Why don't you take a look at that. I don't have a clue what to do with that. I don't have a clue. Okay. Let's talk about number 7. The mixed use developments southeast. Krauss: Oh yeah, that's this chunk right over here. You were presented with petitions that I think dated the TH lO1 study but somebody in here said they didn't mind if this was medium density...mixed use. Ellson: I like keeping it. Conrad: Why? Ellson: Because they can still get what they want. Conrad: But there's no guarantees so they might, so they probably won't. Batzli: Is it kind of like one of Murphy's laws? Conrad: Yes. If you live there, you know what would happen. So what we've got is a mixed use right up into residential. Emmings: I think the corner has to be, has to have commercial uses on it. This road is what's imposing it on him. Not us. There's no other way to go with that piece I don't think. Planning Commission Meeting 3uiy 18, 1990 - Page 70 Batzli: The pressure will certainly be there to develop it that way. Conrad: What's the buffer between that mixed use and residential Paul? Batzli: There isn't any. Krauss: There isn't onei Ellson: The fact that it could be medium density or whatever. Emmings: Do one of your buffer yards. Krauss: Well that would be a place for them. Conrad: Okay, I think that's what we're going to do. Ellson: We're taking away people's land like it was nothing. Emmings: Where do these words come from? Buffer yard. I've never heard of a buffer yard. Conrad: Jo Ann makes them up. Emmings: Okay, we've done 6 add 7 haven't we? Krauss: Yeah. Emmings: Me're done. Conrad: We have Mary Harrington. Emmings: No we don't. We've already done that. Ahrens: We covered that a long time ago. Emmings: That was implicitedly done with what we did before. Conrad: As a commission, we've spent some time on this but I think there have been petitions floated. People asking us to really take their ideas seriously. Ellson: I think we have taken their ideas seriously. Conrad: So when we come to public hearing, we should all be real comfortable and confident that we made those decisions for particular reasons and not because it was quarter to 12:00. Ellson: No but I think people who have come with petitions, we have addressed and we have looked at and in a lot of cases we've acted on it. Maybe not everything that they've wanted like Timberwood for example. Emmings: I think Paul should be responsible for articulating the reasons that we did. PIanning Commission Meeting Juiy 18, 1990 - Page 71 Batzli: Do we want to talk about, can we talk about two quick things? One is the letter from, who is it? Gary Kirt about Ches Mar. He wants to be included in the MUSA. Krauss: Yeah. I've spoke to, in fact Brad spoke to me about it months ago. I don't have a problem with Ches Mar being brought into the MUSA. I just had a problem doing it in conjunction with the plan. Ches Mar sticks out into this chunk over here. Apparently this property's undeveloped and... To the extent that Ches Mar has a failing sewer system, I think that we have a responsibility to bring it into the MUSA and serve it because we don't want obviously to pollute the ground water. I'm relunctant however to think about extending the MUS~ out... Batzli: Right, but that's unbuildable. That's about like 20 feet width. Krauss: Nell, I think Brad thinks it's. Batzli: No, it's 20 feet wide. Is it 50? Oh. Krauss: ...existing tenant. Brad Johnson: There's two things you've done. One in here, the one I saw. The map you had. You had that public. Now maybe it's not public. Emmings: It's not public. Brad 3ohnson: If you were looking at what I was looking at when I wrote my little letter. Emmings: It took us a long time to get him to fix it. Krauss: It's our understanding that there's...development potential there. I really think that we need to separate the two. To the extent that we want to expand the MUSA to serve failing sewer systems... Erhart: Wait a minute on that. Just because he's got a failing sewer system, they're going to run a lateral all the way from Lake Ann down there today? Krauss: No. Presumably the MUSA line is right here. Erhart: No. Where's the sewer line today? Krauss: Nell that's over here. Erhart: Because they've got a failing septic system, they're going to run a lateral down there? Emmings: Ches Mar is falling apart. It's literally crumbling to the ground. I don't think we should worry about extending sewer into a place that's just falling apart. Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 72 Batzli: No but it wou'ld give it the impetus to potentially develop it into something that we can be proud of instead of what's there. Brad 3ohnson: Right now you've got a decaying situation. Emmings: They ought to bulldoze the damn thing and cover it up. Conrad: I guess I don't have a problem running, if we run a sewer line there. I don't have a problem. Krauss: Well they would. · Conrad: They would have to pay for it. Erhart: Yeah. Versus putting a new septic system in? Conrad: That's their decision but why not let them... Krauss: ...feasibility study economically unviable...build a new septic. Brad 3ohnson: ...sewer across the road though? I mean you're talking 5 to 10 years from now. When somebody puts sewer across the road? Conrad: Yeah. Erhart: But you ask us here today to put them in the MUSA line because they had a failing septic? Krauss: No. That's why I didn't do that. I think we should handle that as a special request. Erhart: Absolutely. Emminos: We don't want to carve out little, including that. Ellson: It took us l0 minutes to do what he wanted in the first place. Okay. We agree with you. Conrad: I don't know that I do. It's some property that, why isolate it? Batzli: They're totally isolated if we do like we do there. Emmings: Dogwood is isolated. Batzli: Yes, they are. Conrad: It seems ludicrous. We've got some houses in there and we're zoning everything up to it for. Emmings: They've got houses in there and nobody lives in them. Brad Johnson: No, they're... Pianning Commission Meeting 3uly 18, 1990 - Page 73 Emmings: They are not. Not according to the Gross' they're not. There are some people in there but it's not full. Erhart: The general basis of the line between the 1995 study area and- the MUSA is gravity flow. Does that have gravity flow? Conrad: See that's a valid point. Krauss: He can serve... Again, we're doing the same thing right now. Remember a couple of months ago we expanded the MUSA on an emergency basis for Harvey and O'Brien? They commissioned or they asked us to do, they paid for a feasibility study for running the utilities. If that , ' 0~ feasibility study comes in too high, I m sure they re g lng to try to rebuild the failing septic system. Erhart: But then that was a gravity flow. Krauss: Yeah. That one happened to work out that way. Erhart: And the basis for that line, that diagonal running line is that everything to the north and east is gravity flow and everything to the south and west would require a pump station. For that reason I think you should make that Ches Mar a unique situation when the time comes. Emmings: I agree. Conrad: Hell I don't agree but. Ellson: He had some split votes on these before and we moved along. Conrad: That's right. Why isolate them? Brad 3ohnson: You've got 3 other houses besides Ches Mar there too. Emmings: Yeah, there's houses all along there. There's houses down here. There's one on Dogwood in here. Krauss: That's the reason the MUSA line is here. I'd rather leave it there and if we have to do something on an emergency basis because something failed, let's consider it when that request comes iD. Ellson: But it's not that we're 3ust isolating them. There's a lot more. Conrad: Does everybody agree with Paul? Ahrens: Yes. Erhart: Yes. Batzli: No. I don't but the reason I'd like to see something happen is nothing will happen to that piece of property until it's sewered. Ellson: And you're in a hurry? Planning Commission Meeting July 18, 1990 - Page 74 Krauss: And that goes for all the land. Batzli: No, I know but that one is sort of unique because it's in the state it's in. I mean we've wanted to do something about it and we can't and here we have somewhat of an opportunity to try and promote that so that something will eventually happen in the next 10 years and we're not doing it. Conrad: Okay, there were enough votes to keep it the Way the plan is right now but I think we've got to look at that in the future or even in the public hearing. Batzli: I would also like us to look at the business fringe and we've talked about looking at that down on 169/212 and we never really have looked at that. Changing anything down there. Erhart: Is there any update on that Paul? Emmings: I think you ought to give that land to Chaska. It just is awful to deal with it. Ahrens moved, Batzli seconded to adjourn the meeting. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 11:50 p.m.. Submitted by Paul Krauss Planning Director Prepared by Nann Opheim