PC Minutes 11-18-08
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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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