CC Minutes 12-8-08City Council Meeting - December 8, 2008
Councilwoman Ernst: I make the motion that we approve the request of JDK Liquors
Incorporated for an off-sale intoxicating liquor license for MGM Liquor Warehouse at 7856
Market Boulevard.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Litsey: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the City Council approve
the request of JDK Liquors Incorporated for an off-sale intoxicating liquor license for
MGM Liquor Warehouse at 7856 Market Boulevard. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
AUTOBAHN MOTORPLEX, APPLICANT, BRUNO J. SILIKOWSKI: APPROVE
AMENDMENT TO 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; LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF AUDUBON ROAD NORTH
OF THE TWIN CITIES AND WESTERN RAILROAD.
Kate Aanenson: Again just for your information, the site did receive approval in 2006. The
property is located on Audubon Road, just north of the railroad tracks, south of General Mills.
The reason this is before you tonight is to provide another means of conveyance of property.
When this notice went out to the residents there was concerns that additional units were being
put on the site, or that the wetland itself was being altered. None of that is happening. Again it’s
just a matter of conveyance on the property. So this is the original number of units remains the
same as shown on the site plan. The wetland is shown on the property. There was a variance
allowed, ponding in that wetland. This is a conservation easement. Again that remains the same.
That was one interest that the neighbors did have at the Planning Commission meeting that was
th
held on November 18. A few neighbors did show up with concerns about access through that
and the developer’s aware of that and that might be a motor vehicle access that’s going through
that property and so working to secure that site. Again there’s a couple of different phases. So
this conditional use, as we move forward are proposing an amendment that doesn’t allow this
type of conveyance. This conditional use permit would allow for conveyance for the common
interest of the community, so there’s 3 different phases, or 4 different phases. You own your
individual unit and then there’s common property with each unit. So this would provide for the
phasing, so this is Phase I. Now it’s divided up into a number of phases so this provides a
mechanism for that to happen, so we’re not adding units. It’s just again a straight forward
amendment to allow for that incremental change. So with that the Planning Commission and the
staff, with the new Findings of Fact is recommending approval to the project and I’d be happy to
answer any questions that you may have but the proposed motions are…
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City Council Meeting - December 8, 2008
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. So clarification. Was this always their intent to do it the way that
they’re going forward now with the phased approach, or has that evolved?
Kate Aanenson: Well what we, we were proposing an amendment that this would have got
tripped up in, and that was the issue where we had a conditional use. If someone tried to
subdivide, so this kind of got caught in that, so we held off that, and allowing this one to go
through because this is how it was proposed. We didn’t want this to get tripped into that.
Mayor Furlong: What they’re doing was always what they intended to do?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: And because we’re clarifying some of the other areas of our ordinance, we need
to clarify this.
Kate Aanenson: You are correct.
Mayor Furlong: As part of the permit. Or the conditional use permit.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah Kate. In the staff report it mentioned that they have the option
of not developing the first couple buildings, is that right?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. That’s, there’s two buildings right along Audubon.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Right.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Now if they choose to sell those buildings, will, the development and
the way it’s been approved, these two other buildings won’t have to do any additional storm
water ponding or anything?
Kate Aanenson: No, I think if those, if they want to be subdivided and they’re not part of this
common interest, then more than likely they would be platted and that’d be a future decision that
someone may want to plat those and have, because they wouldn’t be part of that common interest
so…was to acquire those and build a separate use on there. More than likely they would
probably be platted as a separate lot. So there could be two additional lots up there.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: So then in the staff report on page 4 I think it says, under the
conditional use permit for multiple buildings on Lot 1, it says the development of 2 buildings
immediately adjacent to Audubon Road shall require a separate site plan review.
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City Council Meeting - December 8, 2008
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And so that’s what we’re talking about.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And so that’s what we’re talking about.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: That’s only if it changes hands.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. If someone wants, for financing purposes often times and they
want ownership of that property and control of that property, so then if that doesn’t become part
of a common interest and it’s a separate owner, that would have to go through that process.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: And that would all be done under one application as you stated. Site plan
review, subdivision. And then any other requirements to meet the city codes, storm water
management, all that would be required if that pond wasn’t sized appropriately.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: I’m sorry, clarify that last statement. If the pond was not sized appropriately.
Kate Aanenson: For whatever use was to come into those two lots. They would have to meet all
the qualifications of the city ordinance. Besides site plan review. Architecture. Storm water.
Mayor Furlong: And is that true if ownership doesn’t change? Or have they already been
approved…
Kate Aanenson: It should be that way but if they were to change and they wanted to manage it
on site or something like that, that could be accommodated.
Mayor Furlong: Would the, to continue along that line of questioning. Are those sites buildable
without variances and within current code? Are they buildable?
Kate Aanenson: They haven’t shown a site plan on those per se so.
Mayor Furlong: So the answer is it will depend.
Kate Aanenson: It will depend, exactly. What the association wants to do with the, or the owner
wants to do with those two lots.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
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City Council Meeting - December 8, 2008
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have one more follow up question, and this is just because I think
we recently had something similar to where it changed hands and the storm water pond wasn’t
built and so then we had problems with, was it on the Bluff Creek corridor, it was along
somewhere and so I’m looking at these two buildings and I’m thinking what if the, they don’t
meet the requirements. Where do they go?
Kate Aanenson: Well I believe that just in general they probably do meet those requirements but
I’m not sure, because we didn’t approve a specific site plan for that, we’d have to re-evaluate
that to make sure. As we would with any other project that comes in.
Mayor Furlong: And that’s just, regardless of whether the ownership changes or not, site plan
approval is required for building on either of those two parcels?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Because the other ones were shown with the architectural
renderings. The community room. All the other buildings were approved for an architectural
layout and design, so that was all incorporated in the.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff? Is the applicant here?
Kate Aanenson: Yep. Yep, there he is.
Mayor Furlong: Anything you’d like to share with the council this evening? Address council.
Bruno Silikowski: Hi again. I’m Bruno Silikowski. I own the property there and Kate you may
not remember but when we went through that design, the storm water ponding actually included
all 14 buildings, included what we estimated to be about a 20,000 square foot building. Two of
them on that front lot so to answer your questions, the storm water ponding was actually
designed to accommodate all of that. But you know it’s been a while so how could you expect
to.
Kate Aanenson: Well also when you come back through, we’d still verify that it’s still, that that
pond was built as designed and that still meets standards.
Bruno Silikowski: Absolutely. And so you know the other, the real backdrop here is you know
economies are changing very rapidly. We just were looking for something that would make
common sense if we do get into a situation where we’re running into trouble. We’d like to be
able to have an option to be able to do, you know have a few options. Now good news is, we’ve
actually had the opposite. The economy’s actually been good to us. In fact we’re starting
another building. We built a, we started building about 4 weeks, 4 months ago. No, I’m sorry, 4
weeks ago and we’re starting another building in 2 weeks, and that’s just purely based on
demand so I think we’ll do fine, but we are also trying to hedge our bets a little bit and trying to
be smart business people and give ourselves some options as we go down the pipe. It’s not
intended to, in fact we may end up actually involving those two parcels that we always thought
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City Council Meeting - December 8, 2008
would be commercial type property into the campus just because of the rate of growth and
success that we’ve had so. For what it’s worth, I’d be happy to answer any questions if you have
any. Otherwise I don’t really have anything else to add. Thank you Kate for everything you’ve
done.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions? Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And I know this has already been to the Planning Commission and
it’s been through us and approved but I remember in the staff report there were a couple letters,
people were still concerned about noise. Was that resolved at the Planning Commission?
Bruno Silikowski: I think, I don’t think there’s ever been anything resolved or even a real issue.
It’s people have concerns that there are vehicles out there that.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Maybe reving their engines or.
Bruno Silikowski: Well never does it happen. We’ve not had a single incident where we’ve had
a complaint. I think if anything the residents have probably just been expressing something that
would be somewhat common sensical but it’s just not who we are.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: And I think the other issue was that there are people that are trespassing on the
property and that we’re trying to manage through security.
Bruno Silikowski: Yeah, you know we, and again going back to the last Planning Commission
meeting. We actually are having quite a few people come through the property. Snowmobiles.
Go carts. Not go carts but what are the, like motorbikes type thing and we’re going to be, I think
we’re going to be forced into putting a fence up on the far west end because there’s really only
one entrance point. Otherwise they’re like little streams that kind of protect it. But you know
and neighbors have been mowing a section of lawn back there for their use of walking their dogs
and all that, and really I’m not bothered by it a whole lot except when it starts to cause problems.
And we did have one incident where a neighbor had called the police basically saying there are
people running around in the wetland, and frankly it can’t be us. It was in the middle of the
weekend. Nobody’s around and the bottom line is I think that you know, I don’t know that we’re
innocent always but I would tell you that there’s a whole lot of people who are accessing the
property and I’m worried about it because I think we’ve got a few places where, you know it
could be a hazard if they’re running snowmobiles across it, so we’re going to do a few extra
things this year and put up more signage to basically kind of keep people off, but there is no way
that we can keep people you know off completely. We cannot gate it completely and it’s just not
possible. It’s too big of a property. It’s almost 40 acres so from that standpoint it’s not really
been an issue from our standpoint. The neighbors had complained, I think it’s the same person
who had expressed some early interest, or early concerns a couple years ago and you know, I
don’t know that I can blame her but on the flip side of it, I think we’ve been really very good
neighbors and I think there were several people who from that complex, that neighborhood have
actually joined us as clients, and in fact some prominent people. I shouldn’t name names
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City Council Meeting - December 8, 2008
because that’s not fair, but the bottom line is, they’ve been more than happy to buy up auction
items that we do. We did the Tulip Festival thing and we offered up a private garage storage for
the winter for one of them, and a prominent dentist in the area had very graciously bought it up
and is having a great time out there with us so. There’s been a few other city officials that have
stopped by and expressed I think satisfaction with what we’re doing, so from the standpoint of
are we doing what we said we’re going to do? I think so, and probably a little bit in spades.
We’ve done a lot more development on the property in terms of tree planting than was required
from us. In fact we placed over 300 trees on the far west end from that neighborhood, so we try
to do the right thing and so the bottom line is, what Kate has explained right now is kind of a,
we’ve been kind of caught as a victim of some policy changes within the city, and that’s where
we’re at so. No change to our plans. Good news is we’ve been doing well and we’re bringing in
I think a lot of very wealthy individuals into this community. Hopefully they’re spending the
money, I think they are. We’ve had a couple times where we’ve catered events and we had
restaurants out there, local, that have catered our events so we’re going to try to continue to do
that. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Very good. Any other questions? Okay, thanks. Any follow up questions for
staff? If not, general thoughts and discussions.
Councilman Litsey: Seems pretty straight forward so I’m okay with it.
Mayor Furlong: Getting the same purpose in what we’re doing, Okay. Is there a motion?
Councilman Litsey: I can make a motion that the City Council approves the amendment to the
Conditional Use Permit for the development within the Bluff Creek corridor with a variance to
locate the storm water pond within the Bluff Creek Primary Zone and to permit phased
development of the project and allow for the incremental expansion or revision of the property
line in conformance with the grading plans prepared by Sathre-Berquist Incorporated dated
10/19/06, subject to the conditions on page 8 of the staff report, and the City Council approve the
amendment to the Conditional Use Permit for multiple buildings, up to 14 on one parcel, and to
permit 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 and also adopt the
attached Findings of Fact.
Todd Gerhardt: Good job.
Councilman Litsey: Get it all?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Would anybody like Councilman Litsey to repeat that?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll put him out of his misery and I’ll just second that.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing
none we’ll proceed with the vote.
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City Council Meeting - December 8, 2008
Councilman Litsey moved, Councilman McDonald seconded 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
to permit the phased development of the project and allow for the incremental expansion or
revision of the property line, in conformance with the grading plans prepared by Sathre-
Bergquist, Inc., dated 10-19-2006, subject to original conditions of approval, adoption of the
attached Findings of Fact and Action 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 5 to 0.
Councilman Litsey moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council approve
the amendment to the Conditional Use Permit 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 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).
2.The development shall comply with the approved site plan for the project, plans prepared by
Sathre-Bergquist, Inc., dated 10-19-2006.”
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
1(D). APPROVAL OF 2009 POLICE CONTRACT.
Mayor Furlong: We have Sergeant Anderley with the sheriff’s department here this evening if
there are questions as well but let’s start with Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well as I was going through the packet it appears as though the police
contract has increased by approximately 5%. And due to the fact that our financial condition has
changed, and I know, I need to back up just a bit. So I know last year in the budget we approved
the contract and if I remember correctly it was 1.2 million, Todd? Somewhere around that area.
And of course our financial condition has since changed and if we’re to reduce spending I feel it
is necessary to delay hiring of the additional officer for, and actually for the school if what I’m
looking at. And I’m, and I think if I remember correctly Minnetonka pays for their officer and
I’m wondering why the Chanhassen school cannot pay for their own officer. That’s number one.
But number two, our crime rate has been significantly reduced. It was reduced prior to
approving our budget last year so I really would not support at this time I would not support
approving this contract. I approve the contract without the additional police officer because I
don’t think that we need to have that. And that’s what, roughly $90,000?
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