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1990 11 28CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 28, 1990 Vice Chairman Erhart called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: Steve Emmings, Annette Ellson, Tim Erhart, Brian Batzli and 3gan Ahrens MEMBERS ABSENT: Jim Wildermuth and Ladd Conrad STAFF PRESENT: Paul Krauss, Planning Director; Jo Ann Olsen, Senior Planner and Sharmin A1-3aff, Planner 1 PUBLIC HEARING: CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AMENDMENT AMENDING THE FENCE HEIGHT FROM THE APPROVED 8 FEET TO iS FEET IN THE REAR AND SIDE YARDS ON PROPERTY ZONED IOP AND LOCATED AT 7851 PARK DRIVE. LAKESHORE EQUIPMENT. STEVE WILLETTE. Sharmin Al-Jarl presented the staff report on this item. Vice Chairman Erhart called the public hearing to order. Steve Willette: Yes, I'd like to speak on my behalf. I also have some things I'd like to show you. I don't know what our problem is with the staff but I've taken photographs with scales and I'm kind of ticked off at the report. To say the least and I'll pass those around. That is a tape measure. That is with my arm protected, 8 feet in the air. I can touch an 8 foot high ceiling. I cannot touch a 9 foot high ceiling. That's the highest stack of docks in the entire yard. This is the panoramic view of the entire yard. I do not stack things over 8 feet. Okay? I'd also like to show you what it looks like from the highway side. I'm shooting into the sun so I didn't get a real good picture but if I go back down to an 8 foot high fence, because of the 22 foot difference in elevation, you will look deadly into this off of TH 5. You're going to see all my docks stacked up and I don't think that it would look very nice. So I went to 15 feet. As far as the way the fence looks, the definition between a fence and a wall. I know we can go as high as we want with walls. We can put building heights at whatever we want to. My building's 22 feet. I don't think that the height should be the deterrent. If it's not properly constructed... This is also the side from the road going by. This is from the building down below. This is the entrance area in front of the building where it enters. This.is the corner as you drive away and these are the two road sites from down on the industrial park road. First of all the staff report is totally wrong. I do not and have not stacked materials over 8 feet high. If you ask your staff they will tell you because I talked to them about it tonight. They will tell you that they did not measure the stacks. They 3ust eyeballed it. I mean we did a thorough job. We're making a recommendation to disapprove it with the thorough job of... My product is at 8 feet high. From the ground up. The difference is the 22 feet. I think when we originally went through this back in 1988, I think we had no idea of the difference in elevation and nobody thought about it from the highway. I do feel that it should be totally screened. I don't feel that it would look good if I brought it drop it back down to 8 feet and stack my product to 8 feet high. I will do that if you would like but you will see everything that's in my yard including when you get up to within 20 feet of the front part of the fence looking in from the back side you can see a pair of sneakers sitting on the ground because you can see Planning Commission Meeting November 28, i990 - Page 2 the ground very clearly if we went back down to 8 feet. Okay? I have planted trees around there, There had been a couple lost along the road end that I do intend to replace. I'm the largest dock and boat lift dealer in the entire nation. I've got a nice looking place. I want to keep it looking nice. When the pine trees grow up, you will not even notice the fence because they'll totally screen it. You'll see along the whole edge of the fence with the exception of the backside where I lost a couple, that as soon as those pine trees grow up it will cover the fence. As .far as the aesthetics of the fence, the only thing that I find-not eye appealing at this point is the fact that there's some new lumber and some old lumber in there. I talked to city staff. The building inspector, RoD. Asked him if I should paint the fence or if he thought I should let it go natural because sometimes natural doesn't stick out as much as if you paint something. He said let it go natural so part of it's natural. And as soon as the new cedar catches up to the natural look and gets back to all blend, I don't think it will be a bad looking piece. The other thing is when the pine trees come up, that's going to cover it. As far as the differences in the boards, we did go a board on board in a certain section of it. Because of the height of it, we went to 6 x 6 or 8 x 8 posts in there now so it's not going to blow down again but we also put some board on board just to let some wind flow through the fence because when you erect a fence that tall, there could be a possibility of the wind not getting through. They are brace back. It's a very sound fence. It's not going to blow down again. We do plan on maintaining it and I just don't see anything wrong with it. I've gotten a lot of compliments on the fence because it looks so nice because it's all cedar. People say wow. You built that all out of cedar. That's really nice. It's a nice looking fence because they can't believe that we spent the money to do that. I'd sure like to be able to work it out and be able to do my business in town and I'm in the industrial park because that's where you people wanted me. I'm trying. I'm trying to keep everything covered like we talked about. One of Bill 8oyt's things when the City Council approved it, and it never got into the Minutes. I thought it did but if you ask Bill or anybody that was there, they were saying well the height of a commercial fence is not the biggest issue. Totally screening the product is the biggest issue. I have several other things that if it does not get approved, that I mean very, very obvious things that happened or that are going on within the city. We've got stuff sitting outside that they didn't even bother trying to screen. I'm putting forth an effort and I can't understand that we're going to have a big issue over this. Do you have any questions? Emmings: Can I ask a question? Er hat t: Sure. Emmings: The fence is the height it is for what reason? Steve Willette: Due to the 22 foot difference in the elevation of our highway. You sit in a car you're up another 2 or 3 feet than you're looking right down into my storage yard which is at 22 feet lower than the highway is. Emmings: Okay, so you built it at that height to screen what's in the yard? Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 3 Steve Willette: To totally screen what's in the yard. Emmings: Any other reason that it's that height? Steve Willette: No. I just feel that it should be blocked off so that people can't see it. I mean a 8 foot high fence is fine by me but you're going to be able to see in my yard and so it's a Catch 22. You say okay, fully screen everything but then build an 8 foot high fence with a 22 foot difference in elevation. Nobody caught it all the way through the whole planning Commission thing last time or through the City Council thing last time and now I'm stuck. I can't go and bring 22 feet of earth in because I'd have to raise my building too and that's impossible. Emmings: Right. Thank you. Erhart: Is there any other comment from the public? Emmings moved, Ellson seconded to close the public hearing. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing.was closed. Erhart: Why don't we just open it up to any commissioner's comments or questions. Ne won't necessarily go in order. Emmings: I've got some. He's just explained to us why he thinks it's a good idea to have it at 15 feet and I'd like to get some staff reaction to that. Do you think that a 15 foot high fence does a better job of screening from the highway of his yard? We obviously, when we looked at the site plan we wanted screening of that yard. What's your response or reaction to that? Krauss: Well a couple things. TH 5 is, you know there is a visibility factor from there but it's also quite a distance away. It's not as though the highway runs right adjacent to his fence line. In looking at it at an angle past another site, it's kind of down in a valley. We'd prefer to have this concealed. You know the elevation of TH 5 hasn't changed. I mean TH 5 is where it's been for quite some time so this should come as no surprise. I think the magnitude of what's out there comes as a surprise and you know had, and I can't put words in people's mouths who reviewed this thing 2 or 3 years ago but I think if I were in their shoes, had we been aware of the magnitude of what's being proposed there, we would have gone about this differently. I don't view a 15 foot high wood fence as the appropriate way to screen something of that size. If it was really going to be that visible and it was really going to be that big of an issue, you might have looked at extending the masonry wall or doing something else or even question whether or not that's a valid use. I mean the yard seems to be bigger than the building is. We do have, there's no question we do have some other outdoor storage situations in the city that have caused problems. Some are being acted upon now. Some are waiting until we get a new shopping center built and tenants are moving in there. We are taking the bull by the horns on that issue but what's different here is we have a relatively new project that was approved with specific conditions and all of a sudden the ground rules changed and we never authorized that. Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 4 Emmings: Have there been any complaints from any of his neighbors down in the business park or anybody in the business park? Krauss: I'm not aware of any. This was basically found, you know we are now doing annual reviews of conditional use permits. This was uncovered during the review. Emmings: I don't have anything eIse right now. Erhart: Steve, do you have a comment? Steve Willette: Yeah .... talking about a review of the conditional use permit... This is not an accurate report and you're not getting the facts. Because my fence blew down...I talked to Steve Kirchman and asked if I should get a building permit to rebuild the fence .... rebuild the fence. It was on final approval of the building permit...not all on the annual review so don't say things that aren't fact. And I cannot understand where you're coming from. I don't know where a cement wall is going to look any different than a. Erhart: I don't think it makes any difference on when, on how we discovered this. Steve Willette: It's just all the facts all the way through. I don't know what a cement wall is going to do versus the wood wall. Erhart: Any other commissioners have any questions or comments? Ellson: There's never been a precedence where we've had a higher level on the fence before has there? I mean 3o Ann, you've probably been around longer. If the whole idea was to screen it, I mean I can't see that we could always screen from the highest point. In this case it's TH 5 but if that was the main intent, have we ever done that before 'because that was the main intent previously. I mean has there ever been a precedence where we said well screening's the most important thing so we'll go against the standard 8 foot because that's basically the premise that we're kind of deciding here. Olsen: I can't recall. It seems like at one point we...lO foot... Steve Willette: Yeah, it was 10 or 12. Olsen: That was before we had the new fence ordinance that limited it to 8 without getting a permit. Steve Willette: When...originally approved it it was at 12 feet even though we had 8 feet in the condition...I said should I totally screen it and move it up a little bit so we totally screen. Erhart: Paul, let me help him there. Let me get that straight. When we approved this conditional use, we approved an 8 foot fence and now you're saying that the building inspector. Steve Willette: Ron, yeah. Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 5 Erhart: Said to go ahead and build it at Steve Willette: When I told him we were building the pro3ect he said, put it up high enough so you can screen it and also for the final approval we had the building, or the Planning Commission staff plus the building inspector on the final approval and it was at 12 feet at that time. raised it up 3 feet... Erhart: Who at staff was with you at that time? Olsen: I was on the final inspection but to be honest I didn't measure it then. The condition was 8 foot... Steve Willette: Was it atrocious at that point 30 Ann? Olsen: No. Steve Willette: It didn't look bad then? So if it didn't look bad at 12 feet, when I raised it 3 feet... Erhart: Brian, did you have something? Batzli: Yeah, I was going to ask Paul something. Given the difference in elevation, can they put fence screen of this particular yard if he didn't have things stacked so high? I mean when I looked at it, it looked to me, with the addition on there I can't really tell what I would have been able to see without the top part on there but would an 8 foot fence really be effective at screening anything? Krauss: Probably not but arguably a 15 foot high fence doesn't do that much. Well, that comes closer to it. You've got a 16 foot change in elevation from the highway. Batzli: Yeah. Krauss: From the storage yard. Batzli: But I guess, I kind of picture the applicant in a catch 22 here because no matter who utilizes this storage area, they're not going to be able to screen it from this particular angle with an 8 foot high fence. Krauss: Probably true. Ahrens: Does the City really have a problem with the 8 foot high fence or with the inadequate screening or both? I mean I heard Sharmin, Sharmin didn't you say earlier that perhaps a 15 foot fence would be acceptable if the screening was adequate? So if we left the fence up, we're talking about the adequacy then of the screening which seems to be inadequate from the pictures that you provided. I realize you've planted pine trees but the pine trees will take 10 or 15 years to screen that kind of a fence. If the screening was... Batzli: Plant Russian Olives in the meantime? Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 6 Steve Nillette: ...I planted 6 foot 6 trees when I planted my trees and that was according to ordinance. That's what they requested. That's what I've done. I've done everything. The only issue that I'm faced with right now is that I'm supposed to totally screen everything but I'm supposed to do it with an 8 foot high fence and with the 22 foot that nobody ever thought about, I didn't think about it or anything. If you want it at 8 feet, I'll put it at 8 feet. Ahrens: I'm not sure you can even adequately screen a 15 foot high fence. Krauss: Nell I guess, I keep coming back to the ground rules changed. I mean, we just went through the McGlynn's approval where they had that huge blank wall and told them to do something with that. We knew what we were dealing with. Ne asked them to respond to it. They responded with a series of earth berms with a lot of landscaping that broke up the massing. It was a solution that was acceptable to everybody. You know 6 foot high trees are the minimum required by ordinance. You can put a 15 foot high tree and we don't penalize you by it. When you are trying to achieve screening, if you're trying to screen an 8 foot high fence, a 6 foot high tree is just dandy. If you know ahead of time you're dealing with a 15 foot high structure, you might think differently of doing that. Ne now have the 15 foot high structure. Ne don't have the screening to match. Ahrens: I agree that the screening isn't adequate. I don't see that any part of this is screened or will be screened for a long time. ADd it does look like the fence sections are of a different type. It doesn't look like it's all the same fence at all. Steve Nillette: It's board on board on portions where we're letting the wind out where we took and put a board on one side and board...but it's still totally opaque. Emmings: I have a question here. I'm getting a little confused about, we've got a fence to screen the yard and then we've got trees to screen the fence so we've got but when I look back at what we did when we approved the site plan, the conditional use permit, it says all items stored in the outdoor storage area must be totally screened. What needs to be screened is the items in the yard. Is that right? Okay. A1-Jaff: At the same time it states that the fence may not exceed 8 feet. Emmings: Right. I guess I'm having trouble with this. We did want screening and he's done that. In fact if he'd d-one what we required him to do he wouldn't have accomplished that. I also notice in our fence ordinance it says that we've got a maximum height of 8 feet on fences but you can go over that if you get a conditional use permit so certainly our ordinance comtemplates sometimes using taller fences. I think the staff report, and I don't mean to be critical but you know from the tenor of the conversation between the staff and the applicant here, and really the report kind of feels the same way. There's some real unpleasantness here and I don't care how it started or anything else but it seems like you folks have gotten crosswise with each other and I don't think I agree with, I think what we have to do is stop and look at what we're trying to accomplish. It's true that he violated the height limit of the ordinance. Planning Commission Heeting November 28, 1990 - Page 7 He didn't have a permit to build the fence he build and my reaction would be generally to that would be to say cut it down and get back within the ordinance. But the way this has come before us is he is applying for a conditional use permit to have the higher fence that exists. So I don't think it's exactly fair to him to say we told you you should have an 8 foot fence and now you're asking for a 15 foot fence. I don't think that's a reason to deny it. Batzli: I agree and I also think we have to look at, if there are special circumstances on this particular lot because of the height differential between the road, that may be I'm thinking more of kind of a variance reasons peculiar to that particular lot but in this case, that may be a reason to look at conditional use to have the higher fence. I don't know if I particularly like this fence but if the intent is to screen objects inside the yard, I think the only way you're going to accomplish it is to give them more height on it. Emmings: And that clearly was the intent. When you read' the condition it just says all items stored in the outdoor storage area must be totally screened. So that was the intent and it says no stored items shall project over the fence and that's going to happen. Ahrens: Does that mean that people could stack things 40 feet high and that they would be allowed to just keep screening it as far as, I mean people could stack things forever. Emmings: No they can't because if they go over 8 feet with their fence. They can't have the things stacked higher than the fence. Ellson: Right. But could you stack 2 feet is what she's saying with an 8 foot fence? You could have your things stacked at 2 feet and have an 8 foot fence and would that be screened, I don't know. Ahrens: No, but what if they, what was approved was an 8 foot fence. They had things stacked at 12 feet or 15 feet and they needed to screen that. Emmings-" Well, how do we know that? We don't. Ahrens: Well because it's obvious by the fence that things are stacked up awfully close to the top of the fence. Emmings: Oh, okay. The condition was that no stored items shall project over the fence. So and what he's in here now is doing is to ask us for a permit for a fence that's higher than anything that's stored in there but I guess the point to me is, I don't think the fence looks good in the picture. I do think it will look better when it weathers and obviously when the trees grow and maybe he needs some more trees. But it gets hard because the staff and the applicant aren't cooperating to find some kind of a compromise and maybe that's what we have to do. ~hrens: I guess I don't understand also where the limits are on these fence. I mean you know are people able to come in for a certain permit. Get approval for it and then just build a fence as high as they want and then come in under a conditional use permit and then. Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 8 Emmings: This is an amendment of his conditional use. He's asking to amend that element and yeah, he's doing it after the fact and that always predisposes you to kind of use a knee jerk and say, you know take it down and then come back and then we'll give you permission to put it up and I don't want to do that. Ahrens: Well I agree. I mean that's ridiculous reasoning but you know I think that I don't understand how we set limits in preventing unsightly fences in Chanhassen that are even higher to screen storage yards. Emmings: Well hopefully you do a good job the first time around and maybe we didn't. Batzli: I guess in this case I see your point but in looking at the pictures, if this is the typical way that he has things stored, I don't think for the kind of business he's in that he has unreasonable piles of things. Ahrens: Well I'm not saying him. I'm saying that when things come up in the future, what are we going to do? I don't see any guidelines I guess in how we're reasoning this out. We're just kind of. Emmings: Yeah. It's hard. Ellson: What keeps going through my mind is maybe we were wrong because we didn't notice the elevations. That there is no such thing as making it totally screened. I'm thinking if we make the precedence that things have to be totally screened, we could end up based on the highest level that any neighbor might be, for heaven's sakes we'll end up with you know, 22 foot screens because there's somebody within a bird's eye view that's going to see it. And I don't know that all along that highway 5, I mean if any area wanted to see that, that's probably the least harming to people versus neighbors that don't like to see into things like that. I'm more concerned that we were wrong in saying that everything has to be totally screened and making the assumption that it's from all angles. In general, do the best you can with 8 feet is about what it came out as and so it all can't be screened. I can live with that but I'm more concerned that if we go totally screened, then we're going to be asking people to screen for all kinds of neighbors in the future and everything like that and we'll end up with really high fences and building extra berms just because of the topography. $o I'd just as soon give up on some of the seeing it from TH 5. I could live with that is what I'm saying. Erhart: Sharmin or Paul, is the fence strong enough? Did you see it today? Krauss: The building inspectors have told us that it is and when a fence is over 5 foot it has to qualify under separate standards and apparently it does. Erhart: Okay. Is it going to stay vertical? A1-Jaff: It's up to Code. It meets all Code. Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 9 Erhart: Is there an actual Code for a fence? Krauss: Yeah. Over a height it has to meet wind loading and some other requirements. Erhart= Okay, did it not before? That it blew down. Krauss: I don't know. Steve Willette: We had a high wind storm that took off the air conditioner screens and everything else. It was just a straight line wind that came through and just did a little path. We also had a lot of dock and boat lift damage out on the lake. It fell some trees...storm. Erhart: What's going to keep this fence from starting over the years to start leaning one way and the other? Steve Willette: It's braced back. It's a good brace back and the inside of it is 6 x 6 in a lot of areas. Erhart: My concern about the fence is you know, let's assume it's strong enough for wind but fences tend over the years to get to look really tacky and if you think it looks bad now, which I guess I drive by it every day. I guess I don't think it looks all that bad now but I guarantee you in 10 years it's going to look like a pile of garbage and I guess I tend to agree. Ellson: Then your pine tree will be there. Erhart: With 3nan is what you need here is a lot more trees that in 10 years you won't see the fence at all. It really won't make a lot of difference if it's there or not. I also agree that we ought to, you know do we have ordinances that deal with use of fences for screening purposes? We have an ordinance that talks about a fence. Emmings: No, it's right here. Erhart: For the purpose of screening though? Emmings: Yeah. Fences for screening. Erhart: What does it say? Emmings: Fences for screening or storage purposes installed on property used for commercial or industrial uses may have a maximum height of 8 feet. Erhart: Okay. Emmings: And then it goes on to talk about when they abut properties zoned for residential uses and then it says the fence has to be lO0~ opaque. And then it says commercial or industrial fences over 8 feet shall require a conditional use permit. It also says under an earlier point by the way that every fence shall be maintained in such condition as to not become a hazard, eyesore or public or private nuisance. Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 10 Erhart: Boy, I think we ought to look at that. Even in a commercial or industrial area, it would seem to me that when we look at a mini-storage building and we don't allow them to put up wood fences around the storage area. They put masonary fences up. It would seem to me a commercial- industrial area that if we're going to use fences for screening, we ought to define what's the better looking material is going forward but on this particular one I tend to agree that we should keep what we've got. I really think we ought to go in and what do you say the distance between those trees now is what? Steve Willette: They're about, well they're planted as close together as they can to let them grow because when the landscapers put them in they said this is how far apart they have to be. If you put them in closer together or...tangle together and look like that so this is where the landscapers said that they should be. Erhart: They don't look that close to me and also, I guess what I was going to suggest to alternate them in a zig zag pattern. Steve Willette: We did. We went up and down the hill and they're about 11 feet. At maturity they'll reach 10 foot and there is a couple of areas where we skipped so it wasn't solid all the way along because the idea of the trees was to break the fence up and not to totally screen the fence because we were just going to screen the drive with the fence and to be honest with you Tim, I've got $35,000.00 into this fence... It's a lot of cedar and I'll do whatever you want to make it look, I want it to look nice too. I want to maintai~ it. I want to be in Cbanhassen. I made that clear to everybody. I like the community. I like being here. I've spent a lot of money on advertising over the years to be here. I've got a business. My stuff is not stacked over 8 foot high in the fence. I've shown you that in the pictures. You're welcome to come over and visit. The front part of the fence is not much over 8 feet going across the drive area. Going across the back and down... Erhart: Okay, I think we've got a pretty good idea. Steve Willette: And you will see in there very readily. If you go down to 8 feet, it will be an eyesore. Erhart: Yeah, the pictures tell the story real well. The other thing, I think we should put something in here which restricts additional height on the fence. Now there's some ideas I've gotten. Some of the other, since we've been essentially just going around here, is there some other recommendations so we can lead to some kind of motion? Ellson: I would think go down to the 8 feet until you've got a section that you can see into and it's from TH 5. I just think from a precedence standpoint, there's probably going to be more than one situation where you can't possibly totally screen. I'm thinking of that shopping center. That time when people were trying to measure from their decks. They didn't want to see the roof of the shopping center and they were trying to build berms so that people who were on their decks couldn't see and I just think that's going above and beyond totally screening. There are times when you can't do it at all and 8 feet is something that we've got in the ordinance and Z Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 11 think it's easy to follow and I don't think it's a problem so I would probably not even keep it where it is. I'd go the 8 feet and leave it. Erhart: Okay. Brian, what's your recommendation? Batzli: My recommendation is to give him a conditional use for his 15 foot fence based again on the differences in elevation that he's trying to deal with and that's assuming that we want it to be screened and that's important to us. I mean that's the underlying hypothesis here is that Ne want it to be screened. Ellson: Totally. I mean because some of it is I think. Erhart: 3oan, do you have a recommendation? Ahrens: Well, I guess I'm not sure that it looks any better to have a 15 foot high fence that is not particularly great looking than to have something showing from above the fence. To have the 8 foot high fence and then to have somethings behind it that you can see. I mean I don't think that that looks any worse and I think it probably would look better to have an 8 foot high fence than to have some, be able to see what's behind that. However, I am not enthusiastic about the idea of making him cut the fence down either. I'm more enthusiastic about having some screening for the fence but I also, I'm waffling. But I also don't see in the ordinance where we have any requirements to have screening for a fence. I mean that seems redundant to me. I like the idea but I don't know if we can require that. Anyway, I suppose you don't have any idea of what I just said. Erhart: No. Steve Willette: Joan? I'm willing to work with you within reason. I mean I'm not, I just want to get...get on with my life because this is just... If it takes a couple extra trees, I'll put in a couple of trees. That's no problem at all. Ahrens: How about some vines? Emmings: I'm not concerned about setting a precedent here because I think this is always done a case by case basis so I'm not worried about every one of these is different enough so I'm not concerned about that. I essentially agree with Brian that we should let him do this. I think it would be a good thing and maybe even a condition that he maybe do a little more screening right up against the fence. Maybe some high bush cranberries or something like that that would just break up that expanse until those trees get big. Something that could live in shade after those trees are big. Would help in the short term. But I don't know. I guess I'd like to see them do a little more landscaping. Erhart: Okay, just to repeat. I think I'd like to leave the fence left. Make sure it was solid and to have the applicant work with staff to improve the landscaping. I think that's also what you said Steve so with that, if there's not any more comments or questions, I'd like to entertain a motion. Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 12 Emmings: I'll move that the Planning Commission recommend approval of Conditional Use Permit ~88-17 to approve a fence with a maximum height of I5 feet being my understanding that it's only 15 feet high in certain areas. That's at it's highest and we would put one condition on that and that would be that the applicant work with the staff to try and get a little screening perhaps up close to the fence or some how work out additions to the landscape plan to break up the fence a little more. Screen it a little bit. Batzli: Second. Erhart: ~ny other discussion on the motion? Emmings: Well I guess in discussion I'd like to say, we're going against our staff's recommendation here and we don't do that very often. And I don't like to do it. And I guess I don't like the fact that you didn't comply with the original conditions of your permit and that should be said too here. Ahrens: Are we providing enough direction for staff Steve when we say? Emmings: No, it's real vague but I think that now that the staff knows where we're coming from and if the City Council agrees with us, I'm sure they'll be able to work it out between them. Ahrens: But you said just to provide a little bit of screening for that fence. Emmings: Yeah, I know. Ahrens: I mean that's not what we really want is it? Ne want a lot of screening for that fence. Emmings: I don't. Ahrens: You don't? Emmings: No. Ahrens: I want more than a little bit. Emmings: I think that staff knows how to do that better than I do but my idea would be to put some clumps of bushes along the fence so that it just made it look a little better but maybe in comments after we vote on this, maybe we should all say what we've got in mind. Our ideas and let the City Council see what they think. Erhart: Are you interested in trying to amend the motion? Ahrens: No. Erhart: Any other discussion? Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 13 Emmings moved, Batzli seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval to amend Conditional Use Permit #88-17 to approve a fence with a maximum height of 15 feet at it's highest point with the following condition: 1. The applicant shall work with the staff to get a little more screening up close to the fence or some how work out additions to the landscape plan to break up the fence a little more. All voted in favor except Ellson who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. Erhart: Annette's opposed. Anybody would want to make some comments? Of course we'll start with you Annette. Ellson: I just think that it's easy enough to go with just the 8 foot and keep it the way it was originally passed. Erhart: Yeah. I would like to add' too that I'd like to see perhaps more screening than was communicated in the motion. I think with the height of the thing and the time that it's going to take to screen it with the trees that are there, I really think that a bit little more creativity ought to be put into this thing and some investment to make it visually better faster. So I would agree with 3Dan's initial comment. Do you have any more? Ahrens: No. Erhart: Okay. Anything else Brian? 8atzli: No. I agree with what you 3ust said. I think he does have a large investment and it wouldn't hurt to break up the fence with more screening than perhaps a little bit. Erhart: Alright. Thank you. Let's see, that will go before the City Council on December 10th. Thanks for the photographs. Ahrens: Do you want them back? Steve Nillette: No, you can keep them. PUBLIC HEARING: SUBDIVISION ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO AMEND SECTION 18-57, STREETS, TO REFLECT CURRENT CITY STANDARDS FOR RIGHT-OF-WAY WIDTHS, DRIVEWAYS, ETC. AND MODIFY THE URBAN SERVICE AREA REFERENCES. Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report. Vice Chairman Erhart called the public hearing to order. Batzli moved, Ahrens seconded to close the public hearing. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 14 Erhart: Is there any discussion by any of the commissioners on the proposed amendment change? Ahrens: The last sentence of (n) in the, where it says the construction of private streets are prohibited. It should be an is. Batzli: She stole your thunder. Erhart: One of the things that I think that I'd like you just to think about and it's not a big thing but by doing this essentially you're increasing the effect of minimum lot size in the city of Chanhassen to 15,500 feet. What you're doing is you're taking, by increasing the road width by 5 feet on either side, you take an average lot of 100 feet, that's 5 time 100, that's 500 feet so what you're doing is you're decreasing the density of our city. Oisen: That isn't changing though. It's just the right-of-way. The actual width will be... Erhart: Right-of-way gets excluded from the land area that's developable. Krauss: If you've got 10 acres of gross land, you're right...but effectively as Jo Ann pointed out, we've been doing it this way for the past year anyway. Erhart: I mean you did it and we never thought about it. Z'm just pointing out to all the other commissioners that effectively are you reducing the density of your urban area here by 500 divided by 15,000. Emmings: You have to use a calculator? Erhart: Yeah, I do. By 3 1/2~. Z certainly have no problem with the road. Batzli= Being a proponent of open spaces and assuming they're not going to pave the extra 10 feet, Z like this. Emmings: Well yeah, you originally wanted 90 feet. Batzli: That's right. Just big green boulevards. Erhart: I guess if I was getting more open space, I'd rather have it clumped in a park that somebody could use it I suppose...spending any time on it. Is there any other discussion on it? If not, does somebody want to make a motion? Batzli: I move that the Planning Commission adopt a motion as set forth in the staff report to amend Section 18-57 set forth therein. If that made sense? Ahrens: You sound like a lawyer. Erhart: Is there a second? Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 15 Ellson: Second. Batzli: Oh, with the one change, "are" to' "is". Batzli moved, Ellson seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of subdivision Ordinance Amendment to amend Section 18-57(b) and (n) with the change in item (n) changing the word "are" to "is". All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Erhart: Anything on the Minutes? Anybody? Any old business anybody wants to bring up? Is there a motion to approve the Minutes? I guess we've got two meetings here. Emmings: We've gotten recent direction that we don't have to do this anymore. If there are no changes, that they're simply approved as written. We ask for changes and if there aren't any, we just. Erhart: Great. I'm glad I've been updated. Vice Chairman Erhart noted the Minutes of the Planning Commission meetings dated October 24, 1990 and November 7, 1990 as presented. CITY COUNCIL UPDATE: Erhart: City Council Update. We've gotten a nice report from Paul on that. I think Paul wants to discuss a little bit about the comp plan thing. Krauss: Let me touch on a couple things if I may Mr. Chairman .... The downtown traffic...did a preliminary report for the City Council at the last meeting. We're still in the process of doing some more data collection and models but they were retained through the HRA late last spring, or initially when we thought Target was a serious proposal but to examine the downtown street system and see if it's really going to carry through the future and what sort of design standards we needed. Their preliminary indications are, well they're a little bit startling when you deal with what we have there now. They're telling us that in all probability we're going to need a four lane section on 78t'h Street certainly west of Market Blvd. out to CR 17 and that is going to be designed that way. In fact the realignment...being designed for that. They're also indicating that it's probable in the long run we'll probably need 4 lanes up to Great Plains Blvd. which...configuration over there. It's not something we have to run out and do tomorrow and there are going to be proposals for turn lanes and signalization at 2 or 3 intersections will be needed at some point in the future but they're telling us that in the long run that that's probably going to occur. So that was a preliminary report to the City Council and there's a lot more detail that I'm not going to touch on now but we would be coming back to the HRA certainly and I believe we could also give a report to the Planning Commission as to how that's developing. I think some of you might have been involved in some of the consideration of downtown street systems so we'll keep you posted as to Stragar-Roscoe's progress but there is going to Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 16 be, I believe a joint HRA/City Council meeting on this probably in January or February at the latest with the final report. Erhart: How do you visualize making the existing downtown into 4 lanes? Krauss: That's real tough. I mean everybody's aware that we have constraining right-of-way. There's really not very much to give. There's some design flexibility. You can cut down the median a little bit. The lanes that we have there are 16 foot wide to begin with. They're oversized lanes. They're not quite, I mean they're actually wide enough for I car, if you pull over, for another car to pass. It's not wide e~ough for a truck to go around or anything else. If you shave the median or boulevard area in some places you pick up several feet. You can get 20 foot wide lanes. If you eliminate the boulevards, you can get your full 24 foot lane. There's some flexibility there but clearly from the design standpoint it's been a major impact. In the more immediate term though we're probably looking at the need for some turn lades to be cut in and they were talking about signals I believe at Laredo, Market and Great Plains ultimately. The Council's bee~ grappling with how to, I'm sure you're all aware that it's getting very tough to turn, make turns across traffic on 78th Street. The Council's been looking at trying to get 4 way stops up in the short term but it's really going to come down to signalization. Emmings: Is there just more traffic? I mean why didn't we foresee this do you think? Krauss: Why didn't we? Emmings: Yeah, what's caused the crunch? Krauss: I don't know. You know I came into this quite late so I don't have the benefit of. Emmings: We're not trying to fix fault here. Krauss: I don't know if the road design grew out of thinking that really didn't catch up to where downtown Chanhassen was going or not. My own perception is that the ring road system was developed when Chanhassen Dinner Theater was downtown Chanhassen. It's easy for me and it's not fair really for me to come in here in 1990 and say well, I can tell you that downtown Chanhassen has moved 3 blocks to the west and it's a different traffic situation. It's clear to me now that that probably happened. But again, I don't have 20-20 hindsight and all that, that's not a fair question really you know because I don't know what decisions were made or why. Erhart: Who was the consultant that did all of the designing of that street? Was that 8RW? Krauss: I believe it was BRW. Erhart: Are they doing any work for the City now? Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 17 Krauss: Very little. They do some project management work. Erhart: Do they go back in and pay for replacing and removing a lot of the plantings and stuff? Krauss: Yeah. Erhart: Is that complete now? Krauss: It's my understanding that it is. In fact some of the people on the City Council got complaints or concerns at Great Plains where 78th Street was blocked several weeks ago and they were tearing up an existing project. That was not being paid for by the City. That was remedial work that the contractor was made to do. In all fairness to those who made the decisions before, look at the rapidity at which the city's perceptioq on the comprehensive plan changed. I mean 2 years ago you were working on that comprehensive plan. Really we had more land to develop and people in Timberwood were somewhat comfortable and you know, thinking that things wouldn't come out that way for 10 or 15 years. You know, the changes were in the works but it really took until 1989-1990 for people to catch up to that reality and adjust to it. I suspect a little bit of the same thing happened in the downtown street system. You know, we now have the Eastern Carver County Transportation Study and that's showing some extraordinarily high traffic levels that they didn't anticipate when they completed the work for the TH 5 improvements. We're going back in there, Gary Warren is working with MnDot on the common section of TH 101 and TH 5 telling them that we've got forecasts that say that there should be 55,000 trips a day out there. If what we think is going to happen, happens in Chanhassen, Waconia, Chaska, whatever else. Victoria. Out west. 55,000 trips a day is more than TH 7 is carrying in spots. So the magnitude of the changes. Ellson: Right. They did the best they could with the information that they had. Krauss: But anyway, we'll be keeping you posted. Batzli: I have trouble with it because I know when they were talking about putting in the first phase of the Professional Building. The Planning Commission asked if there was enough room to put a second lane in and we were assured that it was no problem. We thought of it. You know, everything's under control and to come out a year and a half later saying well geez, it might not fit. That doesn't make much sense. Krauss: Well there is room to put a second lane in but what gives is the median... Like I say, we'll keep you posted. Oh, by the way, I should add...the City Council members and respective Council members here tonight just heard but Gary Warren has submitted his resignation. He's accepted a position with the Metropolitan Airport Commission so we'll be losing Gary probably by the end of the year. Erhart: How long has Gary been with us? Krauss: 4 years. He's really seen the City through some extraordinary growth. I think his position in the engineering department quite well... Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 18 he's going to be sorely missed. The next item was the Troendte Addition. The same residents who spoke at the Planning Commission meeting were at the City Council meeting and raised the similar issues. Again, they weren't opposing Troendle Addition as such but they were seeking to have the connection of Nez Perce taken through to Pleasant View rather than terminating short term and waiting for the Owens property to develop. In a somewhat interesting development, Mr. Owens wasn't present but there was an attorney representing Mr. Beddor who apparently has been in contact with Art Owens and has explained that the property's in bankruptcy. He is not able to sell land for right-of-way right now but he may be a willing, if the city were to condemn it, that that may be a satisfactory result. Based on the direction of the Council, the item was continued. We've contacted our attorney to basically investigate if we can condemn the land that's in bankruptcy and we found that we can. But more importantly is that we're moving towards setting up a meeting with our staff with the engineer and the designer of the Troendle Addition, Mr. Beddor's attorney and hopefully Hr. Owens and whoever else he wants to represent him, to go for the City's goal which appears at this point to be to get the road completed if possible at this point in time. So right now we're investigating the potential of completing the road with the Troendle Addition which from a traffic standpoint would be great if we can achieve that. Emmings: But taking it out to Pleasant View? Krauss: Taking it out to Pleasant View at Peaceful Lane 'where it is. Emmings: Oh, okay. And then would you undertake those changes to the end of Peaceful Lane and Pleasant View at the same time? Krauss: Right. The whole thing would be rebuilt. The remaining questions of acquisition and questions of cost and how to distribute the cost and who will pick it up and when, we hope to come back to the City Council with this on December 10th. It doesn't look like we're going to be able to get all the parties involved in one room at one time by that point but we're working towards that goal and I'll let you know on that as well. Batzli: They're going to leave the barn where it is? Krauss: Well, there was no action taken on that. I guess it seemed that there was some desire on the Council's part to do that but there simply was no vote on it. Batzli: Because we had made some, I think Steve made the proposal. It was an earlier of him leaving the property or some other thing and at that point they'd get rid of it? So that's in there right now in front of the Council? Krauss: Yeah. We did carry that forward. I mean we carried forward our reservations of how we administer something like that but we did carry that forward. And as I recall, that seemed to be the direction the Council was going. There was going to be something recorded against the title. skip some of the other stuff so we can get to the interviews. There's actually two left I wanted to touch on. I discussed the comprehensive plan and what schedule that was taking up...and what they've done is establish Planning Commiss£on Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 19 January 7th as a special meeting for them to consider. It will be their initial consideration of the comprehensive plan. Now it may in fact take more than one meeting. We don't know that yet but I'd like for you all to put that on your calendar and I'll get out notice for those who aren't here. It's really by nature of you reviewed the plan and passed it on to the City Council. In my opinion, you should present it to the City Council. Emmings: The Council expects us to remember what we did for that long a time? Krauss: Hopefully. Emmings: I don't know if that's reasonable Krauss: But you know, I can respond in terms of technical questions and what not. You may be asked questions as to what your thought processes were on a given piece of property or whatever but I think that that dialogue between the Planning Commission and Council at that point in time is important so I'd ask you to put that down on your calendar and hopefully it's the last special meeting we'll ever have to have on the comprehensive plan. Along those lines, I had two conversations with individuals I related in here. The first was with a group of brokers and attorneys concerning the property in front of Timberwood. You may recall, I said this on several occasions that if somebody came up with a plan that I didn't think the city could refuse, whether it was residential or industrial or whatever, that I would feel it encumbant upon me to bring it before you and the City Council and get your opinion. The individuals I met with believe they have such a plan. Now I'm not frankly convinced at this point that that's the case but my idea for a plan that might sell itself here is, well for those of you who are familiar with the American Express campus in Chaska, if somebody were to say I can take 137 acres. It's going to be prime, Class A office. Here's my plan. I'll do it as a PUD. I think it's encumbant upon us to consider something like that. At this point in time the individuals are talking about...as I understood with approximately 250 new jobs which raised a little bit of a red flag in my mind because that's not a whole lot of jobs for the ratio of square footage. We've got many more people out, well look at Rosemount. We've got 1,200 people packed up in the same space. You know they've only talked about these things and I offered them the opportunity to bring back a review and at your next meeting if they so desired or they're going to, the opportunity to make a presentation to the City Council. I indicated that at this point I'm rather relunctant to consider, I mean change the plan in midstream. I mean we've got a lot of commitments to a lot of individuals and homeowners and residents and I'm very concerned that we not. Ellson: Look like we turn on a dime? Krauss: Right, without inviting them back in to comment again but they, I don't know if they're going to pursue it or not at this point. I left it up to them to get back to me and they haven't. The second one to consider is one that I had heard earlier. Rod Grams called me before our public hearing and indicated to me that he's not opposed to, remember Ne changed his property to residential from industrial. He's not opposed to the Planning Commission Heeting November 28, 1990 - Page 20 residential designation but he feels that when we use a dividing line as his north property line, that that was inappropriate because there is a pipeline that bisects the property with a 100 foot wide swath that you can't build on. Pipelines are difficult to build residential around. It's kind of a natural separation and you can do some planting probably which will be a dividing point. When I spoke to Rod I indicated that I didn't find, that seemed reasonable since we were still achieving our Goal of providing a residential buffer to the Sunridge and Audubon Road. He was supposed to have his attorney make a presentation to you at the public hearing and apparently his attorney couldn't come or he never made it. They may go before the City Council again and bring this issue up again to be considered. My own opinion on that is I don't have a problem with it because I think it's consistent with the Guidelines that we established. This line is just in a more definitive place that we weren't aware existed. Emmings: Which way would it move it? South? Krauss: The line would move to the south. Emmings: How far from where we had it? Krauss: Well I don't know exactly. I would have a map ready for the City Council and I'll copy you one and maybe I can do it at the next meeting. What I'm curious about is which side, now that t think about it, which side of the existing home does that fall on? Emmings: And where does it go on both ends because it sounds like it's heading right into a residential area. Krauss: Well it does in fact. The subdivision across the street is built around it. There's a large swath of that subdivision that's Dot used because of that. Emmings: Oh, okay. I don't remember it in there. Last thing was the Eastern Carver County Transportation Study. Erhart: Before you move on to that, you're not asking us to review these things before this goes to Council? Krauss: I just want to make you aware of it. Erhart: Okay. Are you looking for any input from the commission at this time on their reaction to these? Krauss: I certainly would, I mean I'd encourage that if you'd have any initial responses and we can take it further. We still have a month before this gets to the Council. Erhart: Okay, does anybody have anything on the first one? Any input? Batzli: I'd be interested in seeing what they have to propose but I don't know what it is yet. Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 21 Erhart: For my comments on that one. I would absolutely oppose that becaues what happens, the way we have it now we have zoned it residential. That means if somebody wants to come into that 137 acre parcel, they have to come in with a site plan that we really control to the tee because they have to convince the City Council to change comp plan and zoning for that particular piece. So that's a trade. We've got something to offer in order to control what goes in that area. If we put that in the comp plan as industrial/commercial today, then all anybody has to come in with is almost any plan that will meet our ordinance for a commercial/industrial. I think we ought to be adamant at this point since there's so much public concern for that 137 acres, that we maintain as strict control as we can. And the second one I agree with you Paul. I think moving the line to a natural, an existing barrier makes good sense. If you have another comment that's fine. Krauss: On the Timberwood area issue, they haven't sold me that the quality is there...thought it through. They also told me that while they'd take down a signficant percentage of the acreage, they're not taking down the whole 137 acres which again is another red flag because the only way I perceive this ever happening is if somebody packages the whole thing up. I don't believe they're in a position to do that. Erhart: Okay, what about the meeting on the loth then Paul? Krauss: Oh, the Eastern Carver County Transportation Study. The County Engineer is setting up a meeting for Planning Commissioners, interested people, City Council peopleI Unfortunately they set it on December lOth and we have a regular Council meeting. This meeting is to have the consultant present and those people who worked on the plan, including the engineer, Gary Warren and myself and other staff people, to respond to questions and give out information. We think this study's a very important one. We're going to be taking it to the Metro Council. As you're aware, we incorporated it in our comprehensive plan. We also don't want this study to just sit there in static. We think that this is a good work...and there's other things we'd like to tackle. We'd like to get this model updated. The Metro Council...study on why people go where and where they go when they want to and that's going to factor into the regional model. We'd like to rerun our, it's a process we want to keep going. Since we have conflict with that night, we're probably going to hire the consultant to come in and brief the City Council and yourselves again sometime in 3anuary when we find a good date to do that and we would have Roger Gustafson, their County Engineer present as well. So we'll be following up on that with you. If anybody can manage to get to that meeting though on the 10th, I probably can't but if somebody could be there, it would be very... Erhart: Okay. Ongoing items. We didn't get a handout today on the list in our packet on ongoing items. Krauss: Well, I could say it's promising actually because after the last meeting Jo Ann and I took that one out and we divied up the items so we can actually get them done... Planning Commission Heeting November 28, 1990 - Page 22 Erhart: One of the things that I noticed on the last one that I saw that was absent that I think we have to put on there was to look at the rural lot size issue. Krauss: We've got that as a work item. Erhart: It's not an ongoing item? Krauss: You mean with the rural study that the Met Council is doing? Erhart: Yeah. Krauss: Yeah, I have that. !'11 make sure that it gets done. Erhart: Yeah, I don't think it was on there. I think we added it at one time and then it wasn't on the last ode. I think again if I can speak for all of the commissioners, I think we've spent the last year working so much on the comp plan, I think there's somewhat a level of frustration that we've had a long list that nothing gets, you know very little got done this last year on it and I think we're all anxious to get back on that and see if we can get on some of these tasks now that hopefully we've got the comp plan behind us because I think there's some real important work that needs to be done regarding planning and ordinances there. Batzli: The only thing I'd like to add is I think staff did a nice job on the comprehensive plan and that was a lot of work for probably double the size staff we have so I don't think our comment should be viewed as a reflection that we don't think you were busy. Erhart: Okay, anything else? Is there any administrative approvals? Krauss: There was one minor one that I described for a wooden fence. Ahrens: 25 feet. Krauss: No, no. This one was 8 foot and I made them cut it down to 6. It's the trash enclosure for Country Hospitality Suites. It turned out to be in a much more visible location than had been approved' because of water mains that were put in without the knowledge of the landscaper. He put it basically in the front yard of the hotel on Market Blvd. which will become a very busy street. We wanted to make sure that it was pretty obscured so we had them cut it down from 8 feet to 6 feet and they're going to be residing it in the same material that the hotel's sided with. Hopefully it will blend with that background and also landscaped around it. Erhart: The first item on the public hearing we discussed what I interpretted was a concern about the ordinamce regarding screening. Fences used for screening. Is that an issue that concerns anybody that we ought to be looking at? Or are you prepared to let the next one come in? Emmings: I think it's very hard to do it across the board. I think what we learned from this one is you've got to be real sensitive to them when they come in the first time because if you don't do it right the first time, you really are creating a problem. Planning Commission Heeting November 28, 1990 - Page 23 Batzli: I think in some instances the topography will just mean that you can't screen it totally. Emmings: It has in the past. We've already had those. You try to screen the top of this United Mailing you know. When you're up above it. We've had several of those where we just said it wasn't possible. And then Annette's example of that shopping center where the person brought the developer out onto their deck and said, see I can see the top. I mean you're just going to have instances like that. Olsen: You have the same thing with Market Square from TH 5 south. Emmings: That's right. Olsen: You have to limit the height of what's being stored too. Ellson: Right you have to be reasonable. Emmings: Or maybe we wind up on some of those, maybe we wind up telling them it's going to have to be inside. Their storage is going to have to be inside. Whatever but it's going to be a case by case deal. Krauss: Market Square though is a good case in point because there you have full knowledge that you have a back wall that is probably 25 feet high and that they wanted to use for signage and the trade off was fine. You can put your signage there but you're going to put the same architectural treatment on the back with roof lines that you have on the front because that's basically, for the rest of everybody going by on TH 5, that's the front of the building. There was also the storage area back behind the hardware store that was required to have a 5 foot high or 6 foot high masonary wall matching the building exterior and then the parking lot back there has a berm with landscaping on it so that from the off site perspective, you can see the building wall and the signage and the roof elevations but you can't see all the stuff in the back which is the trucks unloading and snowmobiles and whatever else is back there. Emmings: That's probably the best way and somebody, was it Tim or somebody mentioned that connection with this first item we discussed and I thought that was a good idea. If we had caught this one early on, maybe to have him just put a wing wall out you know to screen that stuff would have blended right in from a distance. You wouldn't have seen a thing. Erhart: Okay, the next item. Is there any other open discussion? The next item is the recommending candidates for, I guess we do have an open position now on the Planning Commission so Paul, do you want to explain that? Krauss: You might as well close your Planning Commission meeting and then we can go on to the interviews. Erhart: Okay, if there's no other business, does someone want to make a motion to adjourn the meeting? Planning Commission Meeting November 28, 1990 - Page 24 Emmings moved, Batzli seconded to adjouTn the meeting. All voted in favo~ and the motion ca~ied. The regular Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 8:55 p.m.. The Planning Commissioners then interviewed candidates for the open position on the Planning Commission. Submitted by Paul Krauss Planning Director Prepared by Nann Opheim