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PC 2008 11 18 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 18, 2008 Chairman Papke called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Kurt Papke, Kevin Dillon, Kathleen Thomas, Debbie Larson, Mark Undestad, Denny Laufenburger, and Dan Keefe STAFF PRESENT: Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Angie Auseth, Planner; and Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC HEARING: SCHROEDER VARIANCE: REQUEST FOR A HARD SURFACE COVERAGE VARIANCE ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 2081 PINEHURST DRIVE. APPLICANT: SOUTHVIEW DESIGN/SCOTT & SONYA SCHROEDER, PLANNING CASE 07-20. Public Present: Name Address th Tim Johnson (Southview Design) 1875 East 50 Street, Inver Grove Heights Scott Schroeder 2081 Pinehurst Drive Angie Auseth presented the staff report on this item. Papke: Kevin, anything? Dillon: So I remember this about a year or so ago. So then the lot that we recommended against the variance, did they go, they took out the stuff? Auseth: They did. Dillon: And they’re now less than 25%? Auseth: Right at 24.9, yes. Dillon: Okay. So I mean we’re going to ask questions of the applicant and all that stuff but you know just kind of processing here. It’s going to be hard you know to determine that there wasn’t a hardship. I mean we denied it. They must not have gone and appealed it to the City Council or whatever. They just kind of went along with the recommendation. Auseth: Right. Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Dillon: And you know from that, I’m sure that was a hassle and everything, and then here comes another one and we just say yeah, sure. Fine. I mean I see a solution here but I guess we’ll get to that. Keefe: Is the lot that they purchased, that’s a buildable lot isn’t it? Auseth: Yes. Keefe: Yeah. And what is the, well that’s all I’ve got. Larson: Could you go back to the picture where you had the teal colors on it? Auseth: Sure. Larson: Okay. My question is, and then if you went to the very next one where it shows the breakdown of the percentages. Is it the fire pit that puts them over? Auseth: Right now they’re at 24.9 percent so. Larson: Before these 3 things. Auseth: Yes. So all of these exceed. Larson: Oh, okay. That’s all I have. Dillon: All of them together exceed or any one of them would? Auseth: Any one of them would. Laufenburger: So Angie if I read one of the items on the staff report. The amount that they exceed, or 2.6, is actually 538.25 square feet. Is that the right number? Auseth: Yes. Right here. Laufenburger: Okay. Thank you. Thomas: I don’t have any questions. Papke: Could you refresh our collective memories as to why we removed the retaining walls from the impervious surface coverage. That made a pretty substantial change in the variance here. Auseth: Right. It was the width of retaining walls is not very large and in some cases a property needs to have a retaining wall to support the topography and by adding that in the hard cover it’s reducing them from adding a patio or some other structure. It was just kind of getting onerous and very difficult to keep track of and calculate all the small strips that are shown on a survey. 2 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Papke: Okay. Alright. With that if there is an applicant here tonight, we’d like you to step up and state your name and address and color in the lines for us. Scott Schroeder: I will. Good evening. I’m Scott Schroeder. The owner of 2081 Pinehurst. Part owner. My wife has the other. And we did in fact buy the property next door at this point kind of intending to keep it separate as an investment for potential future development. What staff did not mention as part of the previous discussion was that the staff didn’t have at that time capability to investigate some of the hardscape, or permeable credits, or permeable advancements that have been made from an engineering perspective, and the, this committee had said can we, you know what are we going to do to investigate this. In our personal case what we had looked to do is have the fire pit installed. The rest of it maybe not, but we can’t put a fire pit on that property and to put it on the other property would involve walking over there so we’ve kind of looked to do that. And I kept this open, much to Angie’s chagrin, and I understand her perspective because she wanted to get through it. Awaiting to hear what we might do to invest in getting French drains and many of the other engineering solutions so we could afford another 200 square foot of fire pit. There’s several other cities that have done this. Inver Grove and that that have investigated the options on this, and so I was looking forward to hearing tonight had the staff or city made any progress so that we could not violate and many conversations with Ojars, the other property, we would all like to make sure that we do not increase storm water runoff. It’s not our intent as property owners to do that to our neighborhood, but if we’re going to invest in engineering and all that to prevent that, we’d like to see there be a vehicle for us to be able to invest in the engineering to support it and then get the credits. Some partial credit for those investments. With that, Tim Johnson from Southview Design is here. He’s had, done these applications in other cities and at your permission I’d like to have him talk about some of that stuff. Papke: Are these things that you’re proposing that the City consider or, because right now we have to, the Planning Commission has to make a decision on the basis of the current code. Scott Schroeder: I understand. Papke: So you know we could certainly listen to it but you know we still have to make our ultimate decision on the basis of the way the code is written today. Just so you understand that. Scott Schroeder: I understand and expected that. Thank you. Tim Johnson: Good evening. Tim Johnson with Southview Design. Our address is 1875 East th 50 Street, Inver Grove Heights. I guess this evening Mr. Schroeder and I are here to just follow up with where we left off last year. I think maybe not many of you but a few of you have mentioned last year that you folks might be interested in hearing the possibilities. We rolled out some great plans as far as an engineered drawing calculations, soil types, things like that that obviously were valuable for us to increase hard cover but at the same time improve the overall runoff. Without giving you much time to prepare for tonight’s meeting with those documents, but just a quick refresher was the documents that we presented to you by a civil engineer, did calculations as far as the current runoff. Factors as far as current walkways, sidewalks, structures 3 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 of the home. Porch. Decks and so forth. With the calculations on the property that we talked about last year. We actually improved the actual overall runoff. As Mr. Schroeder mentioned, we don’t want to increase the overall runoff for the ponds and for the neighborhood. We’re very conscious about that. We want to make sure that we’re making good decisions for the neighborhood and the development. We understand the, how sensitive this topic is for the development and we don’t need to go down that road as far as what happened during the construction of this development. But what we are here to find out is, where is the City in the standing? Some other cities that I’ve worked with have allowed retention areas where we’ve taken the runoff from current home sites. Put them into the ground with engineer’s help as far as calculating the amount of runoff that’s being taken from a structure or home or driveways or patios and done testing to see okay. You’ve got this type of soil. This is what you’re going to have as far as infiltration into the soils. Taking in the fact of construction, compaction, things like that. Pass them onto city’s engineers. Had them review the plans. We go back. We’re flexible. Again we’re conscious. We want to make sure that we’re going to be smart about lakes, ponds, runoff, things like that. This has been real successful for us. We’ve done 3 projects like this this year in the city of Inver Grove Heights, Roseville. We’ve worked in Minnetonka on a infiltration system. So these cities are obviously not completely all, 100% adopting them the way each different city has allowed it, but you know we’ve gone into permeable paver applications where you know how permeable pavers can be installed. Some cities are accepting it. Some aren’t. It just depends upon the engineering and who’s you know up designing these structures so with holding areas, retention ponds, rain gardens, you know how we use landscape materials and how they’re designed and installed, obviously are a factor and we’re very interested in working with the City and trying to help the Schroeder’s in this case improve their property. They can’t simply put a fire pit on the property the way it’s standing today. Yeah, they could have made a smaller patio but then the smaller the patio, you know what’s the use of having a patio if you can’t enjoy it on there. You know so our goal here is to work with the city. Try to find the means of how we can come across with a good quality design so that we can you know improve the Schroeder’s property without having to go into the secondary property. And I know in the past you guys mentioned that you’re willing to work with us once you had someone staffed to fulfill the possible ideas that we have and review those and that’s what we’re after here this evening. Papke: City staff like to comment on any changes or any process that’s being followed right now to amend anything that would be germane to this issue? Fauske: Certainly, thank you Chair Papke. Good evening members of the Planning Commission. Just to give you an update of where we’re at with the discussion. Staff is anticipating early in 2009 talking to City Council about some of these infiltration practices that are out there. How it could be, if we would be willing to look at implementing something in the code with regards to impervious surface. The issues that we’re contemplating on a staff level before we go to the council, what is the 100 year event? These porous pavers rain gardens are only good to help with a small event, an event of 2 inch rain. Not a 6 inch rain. So if you’re looking at giving them some credit for some infiltration practices that only can accommodate a 2 inch event and you have a 6 inch event, you’re, you need to look at our system as a whole and are we providing the safeguards necessary for a 100 year flood mitigation. That’s one challenge. The other challenge, as you were aware of, several months ago Terry Jeffery, our Water 4 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Resources Coordinator was in front of you talking about our non-degradation plan and the goal of that plan is volume reduction of storm water runoff, and again we can get it for a small event, and this is a great way to start looking at it, but in a larger event we’re not able to obtain that with some of these practices. And the other challenge would be the monitoring and compliance issues that would be associated with this. You know 2 years, 4 years, 6 years down the road, will these still be in place? Will they still be functioning? If we have a compliance issue, what are our roles as staff? What measures can we take to meet compliance so these are a lot of the challenges. I think everyone can appreciate that. It’s not unfortunately not a very easy task to approach and there are a lot of complications and a lot of things we need to talk to once we get in discussions with City Council. Papke: So do you have a best guess as to when we might see some changes to the city code in this area? It sounds like you won’t even have anything to consider until 2009 sometimes. Fauske: Correct. We’re looking at early 2009 and looking for council’s direction as far as you know how far do they want staff to look into this and also appreciating some of the regulatory standards that are coming down on a state and national level, is this something that we should be looking into. Papke: Thank you very much. Dillon: Are the things that you guys are going to consider, are they a part of what the applicant is going to consider in their changes to the property? Fauske: They certainly are. The things that the applicant’s looking at doing are certainly a good volume reduction. The challenge is, is we need to look, volume reduction on a low, 2 inch event versus a 6 inch event. When we look at maximum impervious surface coverage. We need to find a balance and to be honest with you, Commissioner Dillon, we don’t have a good answer for you right now. There’s just so much, so many new technologies out there and so many regulations that we need to find a good balance between them, but certainly the things that they are looking at doing will help with volume reduction on a smaller event. But we need to also look at the larger rain events as well. Papke: So if I had to sum up what I heard is the applicant is, this has been tabled for about a year now with the applicant kind of waiting for the city to firm this up, and it sounds like we’re nowhere near close to having anything you know predictable proximity that’s really going to change here, so that could be another year. Fauske: That’s correct Chair. Papke: Okay. Any questions for the applicant? Thomas: No. Laufenburger: None. 5 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Undestad: Just the lot line split or, that’s not an option? You don’t want to do that? Subdivide the two so you can. Scott Schroeder: It’s definitely an option. We were interested to see after a year and a few months if anything had changed and clearly it hasn’t so we’ll have to… Papke: Okay. Any more questions? Okay. With that, if there’s anyone from the public who would like to make any comments on this. We’d ask you to step up to the podium and state your name and address and tell us what you think. Seeing no one, we’ll close the public hearing and bring it back to the Planning Commission for discussion and then we’ll need a vote. Dillon: Kurt, I think you said it best. We have to make our recommendation based on the guidelines or the rules or whatever you want to call them that are in place today, and you know there doesn’t seem to be a hardship demonstrated, which is one of the criteria for granting the variance. And also we’ve got a precedent set where we you know made someone go through a lot of work and expense to take out a non-conforming hard cover. So I think we’d be hard pressed to go ahead, and I personally would be very hard pressed to go ahead and support the granting of this variance based on the rules in place today and our previous actions. Larson: Pretty much I feel the same way. Our hands are kind of tied as far as what we can do. Unfortunately. Laufenburger: No other comment. Papke: Okay. I’ll entertain a motion. Undestad: I’ll make a motion. That the Planning Commission denies Planning Case 07-20 for a nd 2.6 percent hard surface coverage variance on Lot 25, Block 1, Pinehurst 2 Addition based on the staff report and the adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and Action. Papke: Is there a second? Larson: I’ll second. Undestad moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission denies Planning Case 07- nd 20 for a 2.6 percent hard surface coverage variance on Lot 25, Block 1, Pinehurst 2 Addition based on the staff report and the adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and Action. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: AUTOBAHN MOTORPLEX: REQUEST FOR AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONDITIONAL USE PERMITS FOR DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE BLUFF CREEK CORRIDOR AND FOR MULTIPLE BUILDINGS (UP TO 14) ON ONE PARCEL TO PERMIT THE PHASED DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT AND ALLOW FOR THE INCREMENTAL EXPANSION OR REVISION OF THE PROPERTY LINE ON PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF AUDUBON ROAD NORTH OF THE 6 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 TWIN CITIES AND WESTERN RAILROAD. APPLICANT: BRUNO J. SILIKOWSKI, PLANNING CASE 06-34. Public Present: Name Address Laurina Tofteland 8325 Stone Creek Drive Bruno Silikowski 3615 Zircon Lane North Lynn Gossfeld 8377 Stone Creek Drive Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Papke: Kathleen. Thomas: I’m good. Laufenburger: As am I. Larson: I read this over a couple of times and I’m not understanding what’s different from before. Could you, it’s just not sinking into my head tonight. Generous: The only difference is the City is in the process of adopting an ordinance that would void the conditional use permits that were approved for this project because they’re revising property lines. Through the expansion of the common interest community. Plan. Larson: So they are revising the lines, or the City is? Generous: The applicant. As they build they’re expanding it. Larson: Okay. Generous: You could request. Papke: As it grows. Generous: The line changes for the common interest community. Larson: So everybody owns all of it? Generous: Yes. That’s in the CIC. Larson: Right. But like you’re saying, if they wanted to break off Phase III for example and sell that to somebody else, they could. Is that what you’re saying? 7 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Generous: Theoretically they could but the idea is not, only the first, the most easterly properties may be subdivided out. They’re not currently included in the CIC. They weren’t, there’s not a storage building plan approved for that. Larson: Can you point to which ones you’re referring to? Generous: Is there an arrow on here? On no. Oh yes. There it is. This one and this one. These don’t, these are just conceptual locations. Laufenburger: They don’t exist today? Generous: They don’t exist. They don’t have site plan approval. These other 12 buildings in here were approved as a part of the original site plan. Larson: Right, okay. Generous: And so well basically this solid line will be expanded with phasing so ideally, idealize with this club house coming into the CIC, they’d pick up this area. And then this parcel would look like that. And then as 3 came in, that they come in and one of the conditions we’re saying is that with either Phase II or III that they incorporate the conservation easement into the CIC because there’s no improvements there but we want to maintain the balance of the hard cover and the pervious areas so. Larson: Okay, thank you. Generous: But yes, these, the properties zoned industrial office park, so those buildings could be used, site plan approval for anything that’s permitted in the IOP district. Larson: Okay. Keefe: How did the applicant find out about this? Or did we notify them? Generous: I told him. Keefe: Yeah, okay. I was curious about that. Undestad: So it’s just more or less the City’s administrative clean-up. Something we’re changing. Generous: We’re changing and that would impact him. Had this been in place when we originally reviewed it, we would have accommodated it as part of the conditions of approval. Because that was what it was always intended that this would be an incremental project. Dillon: No questions. 8 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Keefe: One Bob. There is a variance though to relocate as a part of this or is that a second piece? You’re just saying variance to locate the storm water pond within the Bluff Creek primary zone. Generous: That was the original CUP. So they’re not changing that either. Keefe: Okay. Generous: I just, I carried that full of CUP approval forward. Keefe: I see. I’m following you. Papke: Okay. Is there an applicant here tonight who would like to speak to this? If you could step up to the podium please and give us your name and address. Bruno Silikowski: I’m Bruno Silikowski and I live in Plymouth actually. 3614 Zircon Lane North. I think Bob did an excellent job of describing it. It really is more of a technicality and we’re just trying to clean it up so unless you guys have questions, I think it’s been well said. Thank you. Papke: Any questions for the applicant? Okay, very good. A couple members of the public here. If any of you would like to step up to the podium and state your name and address and tell us what you think of this. We’d like to hear it. Laurina Tofteland: I live at 8325 Stone Creek Drive which is a property that abuts to the wetland right across from the trail system, and I guess I’m just here mostly for clarification. I had emailed Bob as well and I asked him to forward on my email to all of you. It’s, I just want to make sure that the orange silt fence that is presently in place, that there is no change in that boundary. There has been several times over the summer where there has been dirt bikes, golf carts, four wheelers that have made a trail that come out into the wetland area. I listen to them motor around out there and so that’s been really upsetting. You know we were told originally when this project came before the commission you know that this was going to be a very high end development. There was going to be expensive cars stored in here and that there wouldn’t be noise. I believe Mr. Undestad had several comments that first night about reassuring noise and that type of thing, and so it was really upsetting this summer to watch the wildlife be disrupted. The undergrowth of trees be displaced and you know my husband and I walked around back there to take a look and see what was, you know how much disruption there was and that was of a concern so I just wanted clarification about that. About where those property lines are going to be. And there was a question that I had too, if Mr. Generous could maybe explain that to me further. In regards to the City had discovered that a trail system was being used and we told the developer that the conservation easement prohibited that. If you could just explain to me a little bit more about what the conservation easement is and. Generous: Chairman Papke, Laurina. What it is is a document that the property owner has granted to the City that states that no development or alteration or uses would be permitted in this area of the property. 9 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Laurina Tofteland: And would that be the area that’s noted wetland on the. Generous: Well it shows that the conservation easement. Yes, primarily but it’s mostly, all the western part of the site. One of the documents has the actual conservation easement. There. So it’s shown. You can see the line, yeah. It starts there and then it goes all the way to the back and it encompass everything west of that line. Laurina Tofteland: Because that last area of the Phase II, which is right at that kind of pointy part of that development there, that is about 200 yards or so from the trail. And then the property directly across from that would be my back yard. Generous: Yes. And so the easement document says no development there. And the site plan was specific that there’s those two buildings where it says Range 23 and that’s the end of their project. Or this project. Laurina Tofteland: Okay. And I do have to, since the Carver County Sheriff was notified of that disruption that was going on, we haven’t seen any further disruption but it’s now fall. I mean it was during summertime and now that, and there has been snowmobiles back there as well too in the winter time so I guess that’s all I have. Thank you. Papke: Thank you for speaking up. Would anyone else like to address the Planning Commission? Okay. Seeing none, I close the public, oh. Go ahead. Bruno Silikowski: I want to make one more comment. We’ve also noticed that there’s been traffic and it’s not necessarily our people. Now I’ve talked to our folks to make sure, because there was a miscommunication. We thought we were allowed to have a trail there and kind of for walking, and so we were mowing it. Well now we know that it’s clear. We’re not doing it any longer and it’s been stopped and I’ve communicated it, but we do have people coming through with snowmobiles and it’s not our people. I posted signs. They’ve been ripped down. I’m going to do my best to block it off but just know that it’s not just us. These motor bikes and things, actually some of our people have been complaining to me that people are scooting through. Walking dogs through, this and that. I’m cool with it. It’s just, you know as long as they don’t become abusive, so it’s a balance thing. I just want you to know that we’re trying to address it, but it works both ways. Thank you. Laufenburger: Mr. Chairman, before you go. I’m wondering, staff can you address who’s responsible for compliance of the easement. Compliance, make sure that things are done properly. Is that the property owners responsibility or is that somebody else’s responsibility? Generous: It’s the property owners. It’s the City can require enforcement of that. As a private property owner he also has property rights to prohibit people from accessing the property too. It seems like that’s the... Laufenburger: This is property that belongs to the. 10 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Generous: The Motorplex. Laufenburger: The owner. The Motorplex. Generous: Yes. Laufenburger: And he has granted the easement to the City. Generous: Right. Laufenburger: Okay. So he’s saying City, I have no intention of doing any developing on here. You have my word on that and, but it’s within his rights if he sees people violating his property rights, it’s within his rights to either report that or ask for support and compliance from the sheriff or whomever. Generous: That’s correct. Laufenburger: Okay. Keefe: One follow up, just real quick question. You don’t have any fencing around there do you? Bruno Silikowski: Do I? Keefe: Have any fencing. Bruno Silikowski: No, but we do think we need to do some. There’s some access points from the west I think we need to put it up. I think that will stop some of the issues we’re having, and I do plan to have a limited but some fencing in key areas, just so people don’t hurt themselves more so than anything else. It will be gated and that will take place in the spring. Gated in terms of the road access that is. Keefe: And that will slow down some of that traffic coming through. Bruno Silikowski: Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, and out of fairness, I approached Bob on this is when I heard about it that it was an issue. I actually called Bob and asked for clarification on it and that’s how we found out, and clearly our intention is to support what we agreed to. Keefe: Appreciate you working. Bruno Silikowski: Thank you. Papke: Okay. With that I close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission for discussion. 11 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 Thomas: Okay. Well I think it makes sense. We’re just going to do some clean-up of it and why I recognize the neighbors concerns, I find it is got to be hard to keep people off a big piece of nice land that they deem is fun to motor bike or you know, or snowmobile on or that kind of stuff and I think as the property grows and if then they gate it. If they put some fencing up, I think that’s going to help keep people from realizing that this is not just an empty parcel of land that they can just use for their own fun play time and then hopefully that will get people to stop it but you kind of see it where places where there’s going to be businesses put in, the people are using it for unfortunately inappropriate things while they wait so. Yeah, I’m good for it. Laufenburger: No questions or comments. Larson: Neither do I. Papke: Okay. With that I’ll entertain a motion. Laufenburger: Mr. Chairman. The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of the amendment to the Conditional Use Permits to approve the phased development of the project and allow for the incremental expansion or revision of the property line subject to the conditions on page 8 of the staff report. Papke: Is there a second to Commissioner Laufenburger’s motion? Undestad: Second. Laufenburger moved, Undestad seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the amendment to the Conditional Use Permit for development within the Bluff Creek Corridor with a variance to locate the storm water pond within the Bluff Creek primary zone, in conformance with the grading plans prepared by Sathre- Berquist, Inc., dated 10-19-2006, subject to the original conditions of approval and the following condition: 1. The Common Interest Community shall include the land within the Bluff Creek Primary zone within the common area of the site. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Laufenburger moved, Undestad seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the amendment to the Conditional Use Permit for multiple buildings (up to 14) on one parcel, subject to the original condition of approval and the following conditions: 1. Should the two building sites along Audubon Road develop with businesses unrelated to the Autobahn MotorPlex Common Interest Community, then those sites shall be separated from the balance of the site into separate parcel(s). 12 Planning Commission Meeting - November 18, 2008 2. The development shall comply with the approved site plan for the project, plans prepared by Sathre-Berquist, Inc., dated 10-19-2006. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Bruno Silikowski: Can I ask one quick question? This is. Papke: The public hearing is closed. If you could chat with city staff afterwards, that would be great. Thank you very much. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Thomas noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated October 21, 2008 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS: None. Chairman Papke adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 7:40 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 13