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3r. Planning Commission Minutes December 7, 1994.CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 7, 1994 Chairman Scott called the meeting to order at 7:35 p.m. MEMBERSRESENT: Diane Harberts, Ladd Conrad, Joe Scott, Nancy Mancino, Jeff Farmakes and Ron Nutting MEMBERS ABSENT: Matt Ledvina STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Planning Director; Dave Hempel, Asst. City Engineer; Bob Generous, Planner II; and Tom Scott, City Attorney . PUBLIC HEARING: REZONING OF 49.9 ACRES OF PROPERTY ZONED A2. AGRICULTURAL ESTATE TO R4, MIXED LOW DENSITY RESIDENTIAL. PRELIMINARY PLAT OF 49.9 ACRES INTO 92 TWIN HOME LOTS AND ONE OUTLOT, AND A WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT LOCATED NORTH OF HIGHWAY 5, APPROXIMATELY 1/4 MILE ON THE EAST SIDE OF GALPIN BOULEVARD (CR 117), LOTUS REALTY SERVICES. LAKE ANN HIGHLANDS. Public Present: 3 r. Name Address 7541 Windmill Drive 2173 Brinker Street 2103 Brinker Street 7460 Windmill Drive 7421 Windmill Drive 7481 Windmill Drive 7480 Windmill Drive 7521 Windmill Drive 2200 Majestic Way 4415 Fremont Ave So, Mpls 4980 Co. Rd. 10E, Chaska 7900 Xerxes Ave So, Mpls 700 Third Street, Mpls 7625 Metro Blvd #145, Mpls 2043 Brinker Street 2117 Brinker Street 7476 Crocus Court 1 Sharon & Mark Pryor ' David & Cindy Jensen Jeff Stone Margaret & Rick Manning ' Michelle Hammer Jeff Steinke Steve & Judy Selinger ' Michael Perry Bret Davidson Lars Conway ' Betty & -Larry VanDeVeire Peter Beck Jack Lynch ' Ross Fefercorn Kevin & Joan Joyce ' Amit Diamond Virginia Bell 7541 Windmill Drive 2173 Brinker Street 2103 Brinker Street 7460 Windmill Drive 7421 Windmill Drive 7481 Windmill Drive 7480 Windmill Drive 7521 Windmill Drive 2200 Majestic Way 4415 Fremont Ave So, Mpls 4980 Co. Rd. 10E, Chaska 7900 Xerxes Ave So, Mpls 700 Third Street, Mpls 7625 Metro Blvd #145, Mpls 2043 Brinker Street 2117 Brinker Street 7476 Crocus Court 1 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Name Address Patricia Lynch Susan ReinYs Jim Fiedler Julie Wojta owski Thomas Turcotte Mary Jane Olson Brian Erdman Carol & Bob Oberaigner Kathy Halaeman Steve Thomberg 7475 Crocus Court 7495 Crocus Court 7500 Windmill Run 2145 Brinker Street 7240 Galpin Blvd. 7461 Windmill Drive 2091 Brinker Street 2075 Brinker Street 2059 Brinker Street 7511 Crocus Court Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Scott: Questions or comments? Mancino: I just have one, well I have several questions but I'm going to wait until after the public hearing but Bob the one that I had is there are a couple of outlots and according to the preliminary grading and drainage plans that I have, I don't see where the outlots are. They're not marked on our most recent documents. Generous: Outlot A is the large parcel to the south of that north ... road and then Outlot B is in the corner of the plat but next to the Hennesey property. It's a small triangle of land that's located in this area. The little triangle. That's one of the conditions that we put in was either :-combine it with the abutting lot or attach it to the Hennesey property. The applicant has expressed his desire that they would like it to be attached to the Hennesey property. That's approximately 1,300 square feet. Mancino: I'm sorry, the northeast corner of the Hennesey, northwest corner? Generous: Northeast corner of the Hennesey property there's a small triangle. 11 Mancino: I'm sorry, I didn't get a copy of this. So if I could ask the applicant questions. thank -you. Scott: Good. Any other questions or comments from the commissioners. Any other comments from staff? Okay, would the applicant like to make a presentation please? 2 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Brad Johnson: Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, my name is Brad ' Johnson with Lotus Realty. The presentation this evening will be basically a review of what Mr. Generous has just done from Jack Lynch who is with BRW and then introduce Ross Fefercorn An Country Homes who will go over his product. I think we tried to address the ' major issues that were raised at the Planning Commission last time and we hope to be able to address those'. In the last 2 or 3 weeks we've had an opportunity to make the changes I believe that were requested of a technical nature and we've had a chance to meet with the neighbors to explain exactly what type of produ�t this is and... Relative to recommendations of the Planning department, we gave them a letter which they may or may not have gotten to you, that this deals with 6 or 4 issues that we would have, that I don't think are major and are more a negotiation thing that will probably happen between now and the time we go to the Council but one is we, for reasons of in discussion with Mr. Hennesey, he may or may not want to have access into his property instead of having to go over to a new drive ... CR 117 so ' one way of assuring him of that would be either to create an outlot, which we have done, or just simply attach it to the property. They're not hung up on that. It just seemed like it might be a good idea at the time. As far as park fees are concerned, we understand that we would ' be required to have a conservation easement across the river that comes through there. However, we're trying to offset some of our costs. There's about $180,000.00 of fees involved in this and we assume that if it was going to be used for trail or park purposes that ' sooner or later, either in this plat or as part of the outlot that's being platted, that we would be given credit for that. I believe we can work our way through it but I don't know if the ' standards to require architectural standards in a single family project that we're recommending. That if we find that to be ... we'd like to discuss that later. We have a feeling for what we're going to be doing exactly and then items 24 and 25, again these are ' conservation easements. As part of the plat ... 20 feet of right -of -way, additional 20 feet of right -of -way to the new Arboretum Boulevard and we'd like to be compensated or offset some of your water quality and water quantity fees and I think those are primarily things that we ' probably negotiate ... by the time we got to the Council. With that I'd like to introduce Jack Lynch who is a planner with BRW and he'll go over the technical things that ... were requested and then following him Ross Fefercorn will make a slide presentation about the product. Jack. ' Jack Lynch: ' Thank you. I think the staff covered the issues that I think you asked us to take a look at. The landscaping's been changed. The building pads are the building pads that will ' be built. The pads that are shown on this graphic with options might be lengthen but are not increased in any width at all. The one concern was the grades on the knoll. The knoll has been dropped. The previous grades were reduced by half. There was a concern on staff about the landing areas on here. But built into that grading plan is a landing area that's about 2% to 4% so we're confident that there will be no safety issues. I think that addressed the comments both by commissioners and ... if you have any questions, I can certainly answer ' them. 3 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' Scott: Okay, thanks. Any questions? I guess we don't have any questions so. Ross Fefercorn: Ladies and gentlemen of the Planning Commission, my name is -Ross ' Fefercorn An Country Builders and I've got a short slide presentation. A little bit about our company before I start. We've been in business about 10 years. We've been very active in the Burnsvifl`e, Apple Valley, Woodbury, Eagan, recently Eden Prairie and hopefully ' Chanhassen markets. I checked with the planners in Apple Valley, Eagan, Woodbury today, and Burnsville, and asked if there were any questions if anybody from Chanhassen could call ' them ... the product so you're welcome to call the folks in those cities. I think that was... My slide presentation shows some streetscapes of a couple of our sites. It shows some details and elevations of a typical building. However in Chanhassen and Eden Prairie we are going to be ' adding about 60% brick to the exterior whereas these are all wood sided. Our price ranges in these developments are now averaging $195,000.00 in Woodbury, to the high end about $280,000.00. The low end about $150 and with Eagan, which is another active site, our ' average price is about $185,000.00. It's substantially the same product, it just happens to be what options people have chosen on the two sites. Also in Eden Prairie we're a little bit higher. We're averaging about $250,000.00 there, although the neighborhoods just keep ' growing but we hope that that will be the average... With that, let me proceed with the presentation. I'll walk through it and describe a few things. Also one thing that's really important to point out about the planning that BRW and Lotus has done for this site with our ' home. The average size lot, that's per unit lot at Lake Ann is 12,500 square feet. The average sized lot at all the other developments I just described is 7,500 square feet so these are substantially larger lots. 60% larger ... so there's considerably more width than what I'm ' showing you but yet one of the ideas of the presentation was to show landscaping and so forth between buildings. One other thing I'd like to point out is that both at our Eagan site and our Woodbury site we have ... in approximately 7 trees per home. I think in Woodbury ' right now we have moved 350 trees onto the 20 acre site and we have about 200 trees left to go as we complete the buildings so we do an incredible amount of landscaping. I like to brag about it. I think we do more than any other builder in town. Believe in it as part of the ' environment and that shows. Most of the pictures you'll see here, the landscaping is not more than 3 months old at the time the pictures were taken. One of the things, I accidentally flipped on the date sequence on the camera unwittingly and this is not the right date. These ' were taken in the summer. Late summer. This is the entrance to our development called... Country Homes in Eagan. It's 70 homes on 20 acres. It's a brass monument put in place and entry landscaping. Behind that you see one of our two unit buildings. Both sides are different. That's why the garage has changed orientation there a little bit in size. This is a streetscape looking down on roughly about a 6% grade. What you see to the right hand side ' is a landscaped center island for a cul -de -sac. We like islands in the cul -de -sac. They make very fine opportunities for a significant landscaping and so forth. This is looking at that same particular island at two buildings or four homes. Each one, each half of those double homes I 1 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 is a, in that particular cul -de -sac is about $250,000.00. Looking back at that cul -de -sac on an individual's yard. That happens to be one of the larger yards of this site. This is another landscaped cul -de -sac that's a little bit larger. In the lower left hand side of the photograph, there's a 3 c4* garage. Just suppose with a 2 car garage turning the garage doors different directions than is shown on this plat for Lake Ann which changes the streetscape quite a bit. Also one thing that we always do. There's always at least two windows as you can see in every single garage so we don't just leave blank walls. There's always... windows and then details around those windows. The gable end treatment is a shaker town type siding. You can't see ... some other little details of the gable ends which change the shape and size and so forth as we look at the project. These trees that you see on the lower right hand in the middle, all the trees that have been planted on the landscaped cul -de -sac are machine moved species taken out of a forest. This is again looking at that same landscape cul -de -sac and again at a, on the left hand side you see a 2 1/2 car garage. On the right hand side you see a 2 car garage. Both with gable end details. Another ... but this is all brand new landscaping this summer. Now behind this you can see a two -2 car garages. One garage is oriented one way. The other garage is oriented towards the street. This is what we call our Legend Rambler Walkout. It's about 3,400 square feet including a 3 season porch. It's a walkout that people can finish. It is a 2 1/2 acre garage. All of our homes feature a nice sitting area off of the breakfast and dining area which is where you see the umbrella. And the keystone retaining wall with our landscaping is typical of our walkout homes. This home today is about $250- 260,000.00. Another vignette of that particular home to see some of our landscaping. Also showing a lower level walkout area which has a covered porch also. This is typical of our entry landscaping with mature hedges and spreading junipers and the rock mulch and the river birch type tree and some of the details on the bay windows. Now in Chanhassen, as in Eden Prairie, this elevation will substantially be brick. This is a one story home with a master suite on the second floor. We call this our Legend suite. That home today sells for about $200,000.00 and this is a typical treatment of what our homeowners do with the hanging baskets. There's a lot of personal detail and attention paid and individuality to each and every home we build. This is another home that was constructed this summer showing a 3 car garage. What that starts to look like. That happens to be the Legend suite plan with the upstairs again. A little gable end detail which I wanted to show you with the 3 car garage jutting out and the gable end of the 2 car garage behind it and the little details below the overhang on the gable. This is pretty typical of what we do throughout all of our... Harberts: Excuse me, what's the representation of the 18 -2, or excuse me 81 -2 -18? Ross Fefercorn: As I mentioned earlier, I had accidentally flipped on the date on my camera, not knowing it was on. It wasn't set for any particular date. That's a 2 1/2 car garage which is an addition onto a 2 car garage which is an option on our home. A lot of people do it. It adds additional storage and some people park golf carts. They create little work areas there 5 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' and that's typical of the windows and... elevations of our garage doors. 3 car garage again. Here I wanted to talk, to show a little bit about what the neighborhood starts to look like as you walk into it. This is a typical neighborhood and this is a typical little patio area and how ' people treat: I think earlier we saw some other hanging baskets. This was somebody else's treatment of their own patio. This is another treatment. Somebody else's patio area and that, the little do& behind goes to your breakfast area and your kitchen and your kitchen sink ' overlooks this little area that's intimate with your home. Swinging porch is sort of the traditional kind of feeling. This is a very typical distance between buildings and keeping in ' mind that Lake Ann will be 60% larger than this. I think this is about 45 feet between these buildings and I think Lake Ann averages about, what is it, 70 feet? 70 feet between buildings so it's almost twice the distance between these buildings. It's very, very generous. This ' shows a little bit of the roll in the elevation. The way we treat the driveways with the landscaping around it. The mailbox treatments. The hedges again. The sidewalks and what this is coming to, there's a street on the other side where instead of a drive...so we're really , looking for two streets, two layers of our homes. Same ... looking through two layers, back to back. Again this is all landscaping that was installed this summer. Now I want to walk through the interior of this one. I just have a few pictures, if you don't mind. This is looking ' from the dinette and the kitchen. That's the door that goes to the patio. Incidentally, for this home, back in 1994 we were awarded the 1994 Reggie Award, first place for quality and design in the $185,000.00 to the $285,000.00 price range for attached single family homes by , the Builders Association, which we're very proud of. This is the dining area looking through to the living room. The entry area behind it. The den behind and way behind that, it's a very open plan, is the 3 season porch. To the left down the hallway on the other side of the ' fireplace is the master suite and this is what the master suite looks like. There's also a very large master bath attached to it and more closet space and built -ins and so forth. This is the 3 season porch. It's very typical of how most of our customers finish them with tile floors and , half round...window. This is the lower level of the model finished with another fireplace and more built -ins. It has a bar area and open staircase that goes down. This is typical of our customers. This was about 8 years ago. These people were featured in a newspaper article. ' Typical customers. And this is typical activities around our sites. That's our Reggie we received this year. Any questions? ' Scott: Any questions? ' Brad Johnson: Chairman, Peter Beck who is our attorney would like to also speak to you... Scott: Sure. I Peter Beck: Chairman, members of the Commission, Peter Beck. 7900 Xerxes Avenue South. We asked Ross to make this slide presentation that you just saw because there were ' 6 1 I PI Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 concerns expressed the last time ... exactly what is proposed in terms of this site. What the homes look like and we felt it's a legitimate... and we asked them to come and show. We also, once we had seen it ourselves, thought it would be very helpful for you to see this because I thk it demonstrates without a doubt the quality of the project that is proposed here. We have not said that this is going to be identical to the development... but what we do believe very strongly is that this project will be very compatible with the existing development to the north and the proposed higher density development along the highway and will operate as a very appropriate transition between those two levels... We think that Chanhassen has an opportunity to provide the type of housing which doesn't exist in this town right now and to do so with a very high quality developer and very high quality project. And I again would want to reinforce with that said that this project as proposed is consistent with the comprehensive plan and all the planning that the city put into the Highway 5 corridor over the past several years that many of us have been attending task force meetings. Farmakes: Our staff report also says that the applicant does not have a specific builder at this time for the development. Is that still current information or not? Peter Beck: No, Ross is the proposed developer at this time... And I think one thing that Ross didn't talk about, just remember the staff report had mentioned about some variety of color and as Ross did mention, this Chanhassen project will include a fair amount of brick on these buildings... color available to them ranging from a beige to earth tone type colors. In this project there will be some... Farmakes: Kate, is it your understanding that the developer, a builder has been part of this or this is a disagreement in the staff report. That's what I'm asking. Aanenson: Well up until, the first review or discussion meeting that we had, my understanding was that they hadn't picked, they were looking at two different developers. Peter Beck: At the time the staff report was written, it was quite accurate but in response to the concerns at the last Planning Commission meeting, again I'm not going to say that there's any contracts entered into, and I don't know for a fact that there are but it's certainly Dr. Conway's intent that if this would be approved, Ross will develop it. ' Dr. Conway: Can I just speak? I'm Dr. Conway. ' Scott: Oh please. Step up to the microphone. Dr. Conway: This is kind of a chicken and the egg type of problem. I don't want people to ' think that there's something going on that's not going on. When we've talked about this Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 development it seems, I did talk with two different developers. We talked with Ross and another fellow and the other fellow in particular had said, well do you want to sign a contract in advance of doing anything and I said, well that doesn't make any sense. We don't know what we're Ling to have approved for this site. I don't want to enter into an agreement. It's not to your advantage. It's not to mine. I kind of want to know what we can do before we enter into a y agreements. Since that time we've worked just with Ross and I think as this process goes through, I haven't made any, I haven't written a contract with Ross. We do have, we've talked about figures in terms of how we approach it and I think that we agree. But we want to get through this process in terms of what we can do before finalizing our arrangement. That's basically the approach we had. I'm not knowledgeable about these matters. My understanding is if you go into a PUD, you have something that's a specific plan. You work it through. We're not approaching this as a PUD. We were bringing this through as a subdivision with the idea that once we get that through, then we can finalize our agreement with the developer. So anyway that's just, I'll be quiet now because I start getting out of my... Any questions I can answer for anybody? Scott: Thank you Mr. Conway. Anybody else from the applicant who would like to speak? This is a public hearing and given the nature of the issues that the neighbors have, one of the things I'd just like to ask, well first of all. Anybody who has something to say is welcome to come up and say it and please identify yourself and give your address. If the neighbors have an individual or individuals who have, are planning on representing, please do so. If you happen to want to come up and speak after someone already has and you agree with them totally, it's certainly appropriate to come up and say that. But what we're looking for here is clear and concise, non - repetitive information and I think we can make the best use of everybody's time and go from there but I'd appreciate that, thank you and who would like to speak first. Mancino: Should we open it? Scott: That's what happens when you only meet every 2 weeks. Can I have a motion to open the public hearing please? Mancino moved, Farmakes seconded to open the public hewing. All voted in favor and the motion',canded. The public hearing was opened. Pat Lynch: Just in case it was approved, I was already here. Scott: Well that's You make good use of the time that way. L n 11 Fiji r r 1 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Pat Lynch: My name is Pat Lynch. I live at 7475 Crocus Court. I can guarantee I won't be ' repetitive because I'm the first one here... There will be 2 or 3 of my neighbors that will be clearly concise and clearly non - repetitive that will speak for me ... as neighbors we attempted tie responsive to both the issues that were raised in both the conversations with ' staff in our first discussion here in November. What we attempted to do initially was react to something that people felt angry about. What we've attempted to do since then is to come in and say, what is it that makes most sense. Wha we've looked at is something that says, and in all due respect to the counsel for the development, an appropriate transition of housing may be in the eyes of the beholder. What we would choose to ask you to consider are plans that would have some integrity with the neighborhood which we represent. The people in ' Windmill Run. What we've looked for is some integrity with the perceived covenants that people thought they understood prior to the time that we built in Windmill Run. What we've looked for is some congruity in the neighborhood, not exclusively similarities to the houses in ' which we live but a congruent flow in lying with both the comprehensive plan and the Highway 5 development, what makes the most sense for that neighborhood to grow. Thirdly, we'd like something that is truly well planned as well as truly well built and in looking at the ' pictures may say something that's well built but it may not be well planned. Fourthly that we're looking at roads and access that makes sense in terms of the safety of our children. In terms of what makes sense for people. Not just to move traffic. So what we've asked our ' neighbors to do is to come in and share with you what we think about those things. Kevin Joyce, Joan Joyce and Virginia Bell have each have aspects of what is it that we've looked at and what is it that we'd like to do and we will attempt to be very concise. Kevin Joyce, a neighbor... speak to one of those posts. Scott: Thank you. Mr. Joyce. Kevin Joyce: Kevin Joyce, 2043 Brinker Street. I was present at the last meeting on November 2nd and I did address the commission regarding a visit I made to the planning staff the last week in December, 1993. At the time I was in the middle of making a decision on whether to purchase a lot in the Windmill Run development and I was interested in that ' proposed land just south, that development that we're speaking about this evening. I was told that this area was planned for single family houses. Single family detached homes and this really was an important part of my decision to build in the Windmill Run development. ' Obviously I was rather shocked when I received the notice from the proposed development of the twin homes and I felt there was some misinformation presented to me by the City of Chanhassen. Clearly I feel this is the basis for a lot of us being here. We purchased with ' one idea and somebody with something else comes up and I guess it would have had a radical effect on my decision to build in Chanhassen and at Windmill Run if I had the information or was told the proper information of what was being proposed for that development. I'd like to ' invite a few of my neighbors up and we'll be very, very brief but I think it's important. I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 don't want to belabor this point but I do want them to get their say on what exactly happened in their purchase of their properties. Dave, Jeff, why don't you all come up. Harberts: 1 Joyce? Kevin Joyce` Yes. Harberts: If I may it approved by the City to move? terrupt. In the event that this proposal is in it's form, or some form is Council, is it your intention to stay in your home or do you have plans Kevin Joyce: It depends. We've come up with some compromises here. We realize that there was going to be development there. We knew there wasn't going to be a cornfield out there the whole time. We did know there was going to be development but we were told it was going to be single family detached homes and we bought our property with the idea that we would be in an integrated family neighborhood. I think that's important. I think these people had the same idea. So that's why I wanted to bring them up but that's a good question. I don't know. I have to find out exactly what's going to happen with this plan and we have a plan so. Jeff Stone: Good evening. My name is Jeff Stone. We live at 2103 Brinker, which happens to be the street most affected by this development. I represent my wife and two small children who couldn't attend. It's bedtime. We, before signing a purchase agreement, did contact the city planning department and were told by a member of the staff to expect single family housing in that area behind Brinker. Thinking we did the intelligent thing, and with some forethought, maybe we were wrong in our thinking but I can tell you without a doubt, had we known, had we had this information, we would not have built on Brinker Street. And it has crossed our minds and depending on the outcome, it's kind of up in the air whether we'll stay in Brinker for an extended period of time or if we'll just cut our losses and pick up so that's what I have to say. Scott: Good, thank you. Desiree, Brown: Hi. My name is Desiree Brown and I live at 2131 Brinker Street and I too am on the same road as... Before purchasing our home we also, as a matter of fact I called the city... about what would be built behind us. I was told that they would be homes, single family detached homes like the ones that we have on Brinker Street. I just feel that we were misled about that because I based my decision on that. It is our first house and I thought I had done everything I could do to get that information and I requested what was going in... 10 f 0 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Scott: Thank you. ' David Jensen: I'm David Jensen, 2173 Brinker Street. I talked to two different city planners. One before''•e signed our purchase agreement and one after and both of them had told us that ' it was going to be single family homes. I was kind of surprised when this came along and as far as stayirig'' in the area, I don't think I can afford to sell it right now. If you guys want to buy it then I will consider it, but that's all I have to say. t Scott: Okay. ' Amit Diamond: My name is Amit Diamond. I live at 2117 Brinker. I'm located in ... Our real estate agent advised us where to buy a house here and he recommended Chanhassen. Prior to buying a house in Chanhassen we moved to Eden Prairie and with all the heavy development ' that there is around here and in every development that we looked we saw a combination of single family homes and then twin homes, he advised me not to buy. Anyway when we got to Windmill Run he called and talked to the city planner about ... single family detached ' houses. That's what we thought. I would not have ... buy a house if I had known that there was ... twin homes. I'm very disappointed and I don't know what I will do ... sell my house. Thank you. ' Scott: Thank you. ' Susan Reimers: My name is Susan Reimers. I live at 7495 Crocus Court and I too was informed... department here at the city and confirmed what we were told by the sales ' representative. Of course I thought that was very prudent to do. As to what was going to be built in the area adjacent to our particular ... or subsequent home we were building. And was told that, and I was told that it was to be, and I quote, that the... I Harberts: Could you repeat that again please. I didn't catch that last part. Susan Reimers: Because my voice was shaking? That the homes that were going to be built adjacent to the development would be comprised of similar type and size homes ... with the Chanhassen Planning Department, which I did in a conversation with a person on February 7, ' 1994. This is my agent writing a letter to those of you who will be ... purchased at Windmill Run ... due to my recommendation which was based in part on information received from this particular person. Had this information that the vacant land adjacent to your development ' might be converted to multi - housing sites, twin homes, townhomes, condominiums, apartments, I would not have recommended that you purchase at Windmill Run. I Scott: Thank you. 11 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' Susan Reimers: And in response to his question. We also do not know whether or not we would stay in this development if there was twin homes adjacent because it is not... ' Virginia Be'" My name is Virginia Bell. I live at 7476 Crocus Court in Chanhassen. In the last week of March of this year I visited with the planning, people in the planning department in the city prior to our decision to build in Windmill Run. The purpose of my visit was to ' find out what was going to be developed in the adjacent land. I worked with one of the members of the planning department and asked and I recall the words he said to me. He said ' you don't have to worry because it will be single family houses. I am also, that concludes the portion of our presentation on that issue. I am going to move into another issue. As Pat indicated, at the neighborhood, some of us have looked at the proposed developments and ' have done some research and done some background work and in addition developed... and Mrs. Joyce will be presenting that. What I'd like to talk to you about is some of the research that we've done and some of the findings that we've come up with and I do have some visuals ' that I'd like to share with you as well. I'd like to talk about three things. First of all it'd be consistency or inconsistency of the proposed development with the comprehensive plan. Secondly the visual affect that the proposed development would have on this area. And , thirdly, the fact that this development may in fact be premature and therefore contrary to the ordinance and talk a little bit about that. After hearing from all of our neighbors that they have heard the same thing about single family developments, I was curious as to exactly ' where this had generated from and I went back and I checked the comprehensive plan out of the library and I did review it. I think that it's fairly clear that that area that we're talking about is designated for low density. When you read the definition of low density in the plan ' what it says is predominantly single family. That is single family detached. That these neighborhoods will be predominantly single family detached so had I gone the next step before I bought my house and read the comprehensive plan, I probably would have had the ' same idea that I got from the city planners. That this is an area that was designated for and was going to be predominantly single family housing. The next category that you see in the comprehensive plan is for medium density and that is designated for... close to the Highway 5. ' So the area that we're talking about is low density and then along Highway 5 we have the medium density. Medium density is defined in the plan, it of course has a density requirement but it says that it continues to accommodate townhouses. So granted, the , comprehensive plan does speak primarily to ... with respect to densities but there also is a clear indication that the low density is to be predominantly single family and I think that's what a ' reader would understood and that's in fact what was represented to the residents before they... Currently I think that the plans or the proposed development is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. Yes, it meets the technical density requirements but I think it is ' inconsistent with the intent of the plan and with the ... plan indicates predominantly single family housing. I'd like to move on and talk a little bit about the visual effect of the proposed development on the neighborhood and I do have some visuals and I think that I 12 1 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 seeing visuals will also reinforce the notion that the low density that this is designated for is ' not the right area for the location of this kind of development. What I have are overheads so I'll step over here and if anybody can't hear me, please let me know. We visited the Country Home devetment in Eagan and in Woodbury and also in Eden Prairie. I don't have any ' pictures of Eden Prairie because it's not built yet. I think we have to accept that Brad Johnson has given us his best shot in terms of Country Homes and what he intends to build there. This is the entrance to the Country Homes development in Woodbury and the reason I ' show this is Country Homes market these twin homes as townhomes. And in fact right next to this sign there is a building that says single family home sales office and I went in there and I said, I'd like to get some information on the twin homes. He said, well the townhomes ' are marketed down there where the sign is pointing to and I said, well I'm not interested in townhomes, I'm interested in the twin homes. And he said, well twin homes are townhomes. You'll need to go down there. ' Ross Fefercorn: Can I interrupt? That's not my sign. That belongs to... ' Virginia Bell: Right, but when you and your partner, we inquired about that and with Country Homes and the developer intended. Ross Fefercorn: That's not my sign. ' Virginia Bell: Well let me show you your sign, okay. This is your sign. This, obviously the Country Home sign in front of the Eagan development and these same signs appear in front of the Woodbury development and direct you to both of the developments so the point is, ' there's no question but these marketed as and dealt with in the marketplace as townhomes. And going back to the comprehensive plan, if you look at the definition of medium density, it says that it's intended to accommodate townhomes. We saw some pictures earlier of the ' Country Home streetscape and these are the streetscapes that I saw when I went out. These photographs were taken last weekend and this is looking down into what I understood was a street into a cul -de -sac area. I was trying to get a sense of what we would see as residents ' and what other people in the city would see as they were driving by. One thing that I noticed is that, what you primarily see in the streets are the garages. The fronts of the homes, which we see in a lot of the brochures and a lot of the advertising, they face into each other so the ' streetscape does not include that. What you see primarily is the garage. Here is one where we're not seeing the garage and this is what we're seeing. This is adjacent to the area that we were just looking at and I think we're still in the Woodbury development here if I'm not ' mistaken. This is the same view that you saw earlier. This is in the Eagan development and Mr. Fefercorn showed you a picture of this. This is the same. I took a picture standing at almost the same location and this is what it looks like. I guess the reason I show this is the ' uniformity. This is very monochromatic. I understand there's some discussion about 13 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 encouraging color choices but what I saw in both Woodbury and Eagan was all the same colors and there's a very, you know there's a sameness to it. This is also in Eagan and it's looking the other direction from what, the direction that we just saw. This is looking up the street. You`aw looking down the street and the reason I show this was again to show the uniformity and also how close these are to the road. One of the things that struck us when we were looing at this was sort of the lack of traditional yards. Front yards and back yards. This is something that we think about with single family homes but you didn't get that feeling when you were in this neighborhood looking at it. And also again the uniformity and what we're primarily seeing again are the garages.. The other thing that we looked at in looking at the development was how the development was integrated into the area around it and whether it was located near single family housing, and if so, how it was buffered. Up to the single family housing or what buffers there were between the single family housing and these townhomes. The Woodbury development, this is looking from the rear of the Woodbury development and what you can see, this is a commercial area. The back of the parking lot and there are, you know gas stations and Holiday type stations and kind of a medium sized commercial area. And that's what these twin homes, townhomes are butting up against. On the other side are another set of twinhomes which is the sign that you're referring to and they are a lot more expensive than these. They are units that the sales office told us were a million dollars for both sides. They're very expensive. And then beyond that you get into the single family houses. I think the point that I wanted to make here, this was used as a buffer to commercial or as a transition I guess to commercial and the single family housing that was behind this was quite large. So this was sort of at the corner of the single family housing as a transition to commercial. And finally where we see the development of these townhomes adjoining single family, what we saw was a great deal of buffering. Here we have on the left the back of one of the twin homes and then single family housing you can see down to the right and the street and then a large embankment and then obviously some, it looks like there's either landscaping or trees that have been there buffering it so there's quite a bit done to separate the development from one another and none of the streets from this single family homes run into the townhome development. The streets are' separate. After I looked at that frankly I find it difficult to envision that kind of development right up against a single family neighborhood of Windmill Run, Royal Oaks Estates. I think they're visually it would be jarring. It's `not consistent. It doesn't make a lot of sense frankly to me. The way that it's planned' Tle two of them right up against each other. In addition, going back again to the comprehensive plan, I think the notion of a low density, primarily predominantly single family neighborhood, to me doesn't jive and isn't consistent with the proposal for this kind of a townhome development in that large of a space right up against our single family homes. The other issue that I would like to address is one of prematurity. As you know, the ... can't be premature. There has to be adequate roads and ... so forth. Many of the residents in Windmill Run are concerned about these issues. The first issue being the road, the access road along Highway 5. I won't belabor this because I know it's been discussed at the prior meeting. We 14 C 7 C 0 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 don't know yet where the road is going to be, north or south, and without that designation and knowledge, it seems to us that it's premature to be going in and putting in and approving a development not knowing about where the road is going to be. The other issue is, there are no parks up'' this area and there is no, until the road is built, there is no trail access down to Lake Ann. So we will have a much larger neighborhood here with no access to any kind of park facility. So in essence we are... Lastly, and this is an issue that was raised by one of my neighbors who could not be here tonight. Apparently the sewer connection is a second phase of this, is one that's going to come up from the south. I guess underneath TH 5 and there is concern and a question of whether or not that is in fact going to happen and should we be approving development when that, plans for that sewer are not part of-Those are our concerns and I thank you for your time. Scott: Good, thank you very much. That was very well prepared. Very concise. Thank you. Yes ma'am. Joan Joyce: My name is Joan Joyce. I live at 2043 Brinker Street and myself and several of my neighbors have put together just a concept. We're not developers. We don't claim to be. It's an idea. We've looked into a lot of different alternatives here and we'd like to show you what we have on our minds with regard to what we would like to see because we feel that is something that is important to use with regards to safety, traffic for our neighborhood and developing and establishing our neighborhood as a separate place... So I have some handouts for you and then I have an overhead to show also. Now what I did is we just copied off of what was sent out to us. This is apparently not to scale with anything but there are three really big issues that I would like to point out with this. One is the concept of the overall plan. The other one is buffers and the third point is the traffic flow with regard to the roads. And first of all to start with, I'd like to point out that the concept we felt that this provides is logical in terms with the fact that you have the single family homes that are already in existence right here and then they end right here where this cul -de -sac ends, right here. We think that it's only logical for this road to continue on to more single family homes as we were expected to see sometime in the future. They would be homes equal in size to our's along with value and lot size. And then that road would go back out onto Galpin so that we can keep our neighborhood completely onto itself here. And beyond that, a little bit closer to Highway 5 would be a park or something like that with buffers and trail systems. I do understand that a lot of us have already paid into this sort of thing with our community and I'm sure we'll be seeing it sometime. I thought this was a logical place to provide something like that and then further on down closer to Highway 5 we'd have the higher density housing. This way there's again, it's a natural progression from one density to another density with again the second buffer inbetween, which goes to my next point. The buffer, whether it's a park or trails or just a large expanse of land with several hills and trees, I think it's really essential that we have something like that because again it divides the two different kinds of F 0 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 , neighborhoods and I don't think that it makes for a good neighborhood to have them connected in any way so that's why we have the road ... we feel most strongly about is with regard to safety for our children. Right now, the way our neighborhood exists, there is no ' public areal them to play in other than each other's back yards so the children end up crossing the street and starting at the age of 3, 2. When they're allowed to be out in the front yard and wander, they do not know the rules and regulations. You know you've got to look , both ways. If we were to have traffic coming through our neighborhood and going to some other higher density area, there's absolutely no way our children could be outside and cross ' the street and go to each other's homes. Even with the children who are old enough to ride their bikes in the streets, there's no way we could allow that. So by providing a street in our neighborhood that comes off of Galpin and goes back out, the only traffic we will have in our ' neighborhood will be within our own residents and therefore anybody coming from downtown Chanhassen and wanting to go up here is not going to cut through our neighborhood and therefore having a threat to the activities that go on in our neighborhood as far as the children ' go. Based on those three points, this is what we feel we would like to see. I know that there have been several considerations and we wanted to bring up something here that we thought maybe was the closest to what we've seen so far, which is this layout here. There was some ' talk about possibly coming across this way and making all of these single family homes, with the larger lots. You know that's a step in the right direction but again, our big fear is that we've got these roads going right through the higher density. We're going to have that traffic ' going right through our neighborhood. That was the big concern and the other concern again is that there's absolutely nothing with regard to public space for our children to play in and there are no buffers between the two areas. So that's why we feel that this sort of thing is ' really much more logical. Do you have any questions at all? Scott: Questions? ' Mancino: Just a clarification from staff and that is in the ... service report the Park and Recreation Commission voted to take full park and trail fees in lieu of land dedication. Is ' that? Generous: That's correct. , Audience: We can't hear you. , Generous: That's correct. The Park Commission believes, there is a Stockdale park planned on the west side of Galpin, right across from this development and they felt that it wasn't a ' good idea for the city to have a second park in this area. Mancino: Did you hear me? I 16 ' n Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Audience: No. ' Mancino: Okay. My question was, in the staff report the Park and Recreation Commission has alreadyted and discussed this development and the decision has been made to accept ' full park and trail fees in lieu of land dedication. So there isn't, the Park and Recreation Commission has not asked for a park in this area from the applicant. And that is something that they are recommending to City Council. ' Sue Reimers: Sue Reimers, 7495 Crocus Court. My question to you is, does Chanhassen planning plan for having children to cross a 45 to 44 mph road to play in a park? Open ' ended. Harberts: I don't know but I have a question. What was your expectation when you ' purchased the house? Did you ask the developer as to what park would be located within your subdivision? ' Sue Reimers: Yes. And we were told across the road but we lived adjacent to a park in Eden Prairie prior to moving here and it was fully used by the children because they were adjacent to it. We have no intention of using that park because we drive to Lake Ann and we ' fully expected the development, a further similar development of single family dwelling development to be to the south of us eventually and expect us to be able to get to Lake Ann eventually. Harberts: B Y what means? ' Sue Reimers: Roads or. Harberts: By walking? By? Sue Reimers: Walking. Mostly walking or riding bikes. Or I would drive around the other ' way and avoid sending my children out onto Galpin. We don't even walk on Galpin Road. But that's, you know I didn't know if that would be an option... ' Farmakes: You're aware that there's a separate commission that deals with the issues of park and recreation. It's not just... ' Sue Reimers: Okay. So you don't work together at all? Farmakes: Yes we do but I'm just pointing that out as some information as that's part of the ' process also if you disagree with that... ' 17 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 1 I Sue Reimers: So when they approve something do you, is that said and done? Farmakes: Primarily they make a recommendation and we get it in our staff report. , Sue Reimers: They make a recommendation to you and then you go through the process and ' then recommend to the Council? Farmakes: That's correct. , Sue Reimers: Okay. So it's one to the other... Conrad: No, they report directly to the City Council. ' Sue Reimers: Oh, okay. I Farmakes: But it's part of our process and in our information packet that each development that comes into Chanhassen has either a neighborhood park within a development or a private park within a development or in lieu of a park or park space, they dedicate fees to the general fund. ' Sue Reimers: So our money is going across the street? Or across Galpin at this point, is that where our money will be... Scott: Well it's part of the total fund and some of that money can end up at Lake Ann. Some of it can end up across the street. There's also a Public Safety Commission that, what we try to do is try to, we have our pockets our expertise. Planning, public safety, park and rec are three of the most active committees and what we do is we rely very heavily, since I don't consider myself to be a public safety expert or a park and recreation expert, I put a lot of credence into what people who have gravitated toward those two committees and it's not very often, we may question what they're doing from time to time but basically speaking we trust their judgment and that makes the process go smoother but most people who come in ' contact with`the process if you will, either at the Planning Commission level or at the City Council , level but there's a lot of work that goes on at other commissions that are equally as important as our's. ' Sue Reimers: Well thank you for your time. Scott: Sure. Would anyone else like to speak at the public hearing? If someone else would like to come up first, or come up for the first time. If there isn't anyone who would like to come up for the first time, please add additional comments. I 18 1 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 I Joan Joyce: We did put a lot of time and effort into the plan and concept that we presented ' and there are several people who would be interested in your personal, your own opinions with regards to whether the plan has good points, bad points. Whether it's something that's feasible in }r eyes. We'd like to... 0 Scott: I think what we can do is when we close the public hearing there's, for those of you who haven't been to a Planning Commission meeting, what we do is prior to making a recommendation or individual recommendations to the City Council, we make our comments and the pluses and minuses of what we see and then basically supports the reason why we vote one way or the other so we have a public discussion process and we react. What we do is we react to all of the facts that we have seen at a meeting and try to put them into some sort of a format so then we can make our decision then so that's part of the process that happens after the public hearing. Joan Joyce: Okay. So therefore there are no questions on your part at this time? Scott: Not from me. Joan Joyce: We did such a good job you don't have any questions? Scott: As I mentioned before, it's well prepared and very concise and that's what, when we have questions that's usually when something is not easily understood so you've done the kind of job we dream of. Good. Anybody else like to speak? Steve Bell: I'm Steve Bell. I live at 7476 Crocus Court and I'm not as well organized as my wife. This is my notes... I wanted to tell you a story that I just read in Readers Digest ... and I think it's a little pertinent... A guy was talking about when he was younger and he joined the Cub Scouts. And when he joined the Cub Scouts he ... they would set up the chairs and they would let you look at those chairs and then they'd blindfold him and let him walk through it... and I think we kind of forget that ... the chairs get moved a lot, so if ..we're still a little upset the chairs got moved. I'd like to address the fact that, I agree that this is a premature development in that with the access road to the south not yet determined, this plat, if it did go south, and then the whole phase two of this proposal is moot. They'd have to change and start all over again and that seems to me that that's not a very finalized plan. When you have to ... that "control to a second phase. There is no sewer to that second phase. It has to come 3/4 of a mile up to the school first and then maybe they can piggy back and get under the road next year but maybe not next year which would put it a year down the road. And I'm not so sure, I'm not a drainage expert but I haven't really been sold on the fact that this drainage is well taken care of here yet on this property. How it will drain and where it will pool so that's all I'm going to say about that. With respect to the access road, Chanhassen has 19 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 made some extraordinary and gotten some extraordinary commitments from extraordinary demands on the design of their buildings along the corridor. From Taco Bell I understand... their own paint scheme. They don't want this ugly thing that Taco Bell always does. This is along the coidor and granted these are nice townhomes from the pictures. They're all the same but they do not, I would find it hard to believe that you would require a national corporation like Taco Bell to change their color scheme and then you would say, but we don't care if we have 92 townhomes where the city Planning Commission has told us that maybe 70 is what you normally would put in this spot to begin with. So we're already at a higher density. I'd like to address the Park Board approval. The Park Board has approved this. The Park Board has approved this because they're getting fees in lieu of land dedication to finish the Stockdale park and I would venture to guess that they would have fees in lieu of land dedication from a single family development, they would approve it just as they need the money for the Stockdale park, according to their Minutes. They did express a concern as to the way this development was proposed and it's in their Minutes and you've got a copy. There's been some concern raised, and particularly by a former City Council member ... that there's really a lot of pressure on the city to do affordable housing. I would like to think... that this would somehow fit into... affordable housing. This is just another type of housing. It is not by any means affordable housing. And last but not least, I ain't never moving again is my concern so if what goes in there, I'm not moving ... so thank you. Harberts: In your opinion, what's affordable housing? Steve Bell: I don't know if it's my opinion but affordable housing I believe is closer down to $80,000.00. As a matter of fact I've heard the figure of 40. If you get down to where a family of 4 making over the poverty level, which is what $14,036.00, you're going to have to get down, way down ... so there's no way that even the base price I believe on these homes are $129,000.00? Ross Fefercorn: It's not affordable housing. Steve Bell: Right. And that's what the sales people told us, $129,000.00 was the base up to $189,000.00�so it was a little shocking to hear the prices. But by no means should there be pressure to. and I also talked to Workman's office. Tom Workman's office and to get an idea of what the Metropolitan Council had in ... information of the sewer lines and we ... Maple Grove and the legislator who's in trouble for... He told me that as long as the city has a comprehensive plan, and the city sticks with the comprehensive plan, they tend to go along with what the city decides. Staff is recommending that this fits the zoning. That this development will fit the zoning if we change the zoning and I think my wife made an excellent case that that may be true except we don't think the zoning fits the spirit or the intent of the comprehensive plan and so yes, if this housing development would fit that 20 C F I I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 zoning but does that zoning fit the comprehensive plan and we have read it. We've not read ' it as much as you guys have but we have read it and we feel that there's a lot more to be considered on this as far as how this would fit with the plan. Thank you. ' Scott: Good thank you. Would anyone else like to speak at the public hearing? Yes sir. Rick Manning: My name is Rick Manning. I'm at 7460 Windmill Drive. I had a question I ' guess. There seems to be some great confusion and some disagreement between the commission and the city from the staff at the last meeting regarding the alignment of the frontage road and I'm wondering if there actually is a plan by the city. If that disagreement ' has been settled or if the planning staff actually knows what the alignment of the frontage road is at this point right now. ' Aanenson: I'm not sure I understand what his question is. Rick Manning: The way I understood it at the last meeting, there has been a resolution ' passed for the alignment of the frontage road, whether it would be a southerly or northerly alignment, is that correct? ' Harberts: What's the current position of the City Council? Aanenson: The most recent one that is not on record. That was in a workshop. That was a ' public meeting, was the northerly alignment. There was on the public record that was a resolution for the southern alignment so until we hold the final public hearing. ' Harberts: So Council action right now is. ' Aanenson: It's the northern. Harberts: It's north. But there's been discussion at the public workshops that it's south. ' Aanenson: No, other way around. ' Harberts: Okay, sorry. Rick Manning: So it hasn't been resolved. ' Harberts: Well it has been resolved by Council. It's just a matter of if the Council decides to revisit it. Because if they're on ... resolution, that's the direction. 21 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' Farmakes: How can it be decided prior to the public hearing? Harberts: But there's a resolution, that's got to be ... action until they take any other actions. ' Farmakes: Then what are they holding public hearings on? ' Aanenson: The resolution was for the environmental assessment document. The final public hearing will be held when MnDot and the Federal Highway Administration sign off on the ' environmental assessment document. The City Council did say during that information meeting there was a resolution for the southern alignment. Since that time they had a workshop that was public. That they revisited. They brought back in the consultant on the ' study, Barton - Aschman and Bill Morrish from the University of Minnesota to go back and revisit the purpose of doing the whole study and they concluded that they probably should think about the northern alignment and there seemed to be a consensus to go back to the ' northern alignment. Scott: I guess what's the bottom line? ' Aanenson: The applicants they asked us what we believe right now the feeling of the Council is and we said that we're not certain but the latest was the northern alignment and ' that's the direction we gave them. Obviously the City Council, if this gets to the Council before the Council's held the hearing, the Council's going to have to make a decision. , Scott: Okay. And then the alignment that's shown on the preliminary plat. Aanenson: Is the northern alignment. ' Scott: Is the northern alignment, okay. ' Aanenson: Correct. Mancino: And they can make a decision based on this plat versus having a public hearing on , the BA - document? Aanenson: They may say it's not consistent with what, they want the southern alignment. It ' will force them to make a decision. Rick Manning: My next question was, if this plan should be approved, could that force that decision and that would ... and that could happen? 22 1 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Aanenson: Yes. ' Rick Manning: If this is approved, that frontage road. ' Farmakes: It doesn't force the decision. We just make a recommendation. To force the position certainly it is another domino set up. ' Nutting: They can choose to table it at Council until. Farmakes: Or to deny it. ' Nutting: Hold the public hearing and finalize it. ' Rick Manning: But it seems to be a major issue within the city on whether or not to take the southerly or the northerly alignment. I guess shouldn't more emphasis be put on making that decision before a development makes that decision for the city? Scott: Well as far as this development goes, the first phase will not be affected in a major sense by the position of the road but the second phase of the southerly portion of the project will definitely be impacted by it. Farmakes: Part of the whole situation, I don't know if you've followed Highway 5 but ' essentially what made it difficult was that it was essentially a wash. North and south cost about the same. EPA the same. Everything was just about the same and the only difference that we spent arguing about was philosophical and how it drives development. ' Rick Manning: How? ' Farmakes: How it categorizes or corridor or kind of compartmentalizes everything and where it falls. That's essentially what the argument was about so just, sorry to interrupt you but I ' thought maybe they don't know. That they somehow they think we're making that decision and made a recommendation. Rick Manning: Does this development include the frontage road? The first phase of this ' development does include the frontage road. ' Scott: The southerly portion of the first phase is actually shown as the northern route. Rick Manning: I guess I'd like to echo Joan Joyce's comments about public safety and the ' safety of our children. I have three that play in the street and ride their bikes and should our 1 23 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 development be attached by that road into this twin home development, that road continues on to the frontage road and I know that people are going to cut through our development to get to that frontage road and down out to Target. I know because I would do it myself so I'm very concer'd about where that frontage road goes and the fact that it will be... Scott: Okay, thank you for your comments. Would anybody else like to speak? Yes sir. Bret Davidson: My name is Bret Davidson. I live at 2200 Majestic Way. I was not at the previous one so I'm a little bit at a loss ... My biggest concern is the traffic and the road alignment. I mean we all expect, at least around where I am, we expect roads through our neighborhoods to carry our residential traffic. My concern with the plan I see here is we may have happening exactly what Mr. Manning just said and that is we start using our residential neighborhood as a short cut for this frontage road or the access road to Galpin Boulevard. I would think there would be ways that you could change that or you could look at changing that either by tying Windmill Run. If you let the plat go through in a little more westerly position so it takes a couple of turns. If you were going to short cut through there or to have a temporary cul -de -sac on Windmill Run where it would tie into the access road until the access road travels all the way through. My biggest concern is that we don't, as this development comes on board and this comes about, that we don't have a situation where we're using a residential street for short cuts. There's a lot of ways we can fix that. By putting a temporary cul -de -sac across that or moving the alignment but the way that it's proposed right now, it's almost a straight shot off of the frontage road or the access road, Windmill Drive all the way back to Galpin. And the problems that we have at the corner of Galpin and TH 5 it's going to significantly increase the traffic through our residential neighborhood. It's not our residential traffic. It's people that are taking a short cut. So I'd like to ask you to take a look at that and how you approve it and make sure that we don't have traffic through there that's not neighborhood traffic. Scott: Hey Dave. Could you talk a little bit about the connection to Galpin that's shown on the northwest portion of this development and how that, when is that going to be made relative to when the units are going to be occupied. Hempel Let's see, with the first phase of development proposed to have access out onto Galpin Boulevard... south from the Windmill Run development. The second phase then where they exfend Windmill Run probably down to connect to the frontage road. Scott: So without the frontage road there, just generally taking human nature of taking the straight shot from Point A to Point B, that people in my opinion and you express your opinion, people are going to make their right in or their left in into the new development by the connection that's made specifically for that purpose. You see people coming in through 24 �J C u I I I I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' the other development and going south to et into their development? An ' p g g g d I m dust, my ' human nature would say that's going to be pretty much the point and unless someone is going off on a scenic route, they're probably not going to be getting involved and driving through Windmill Ri to get in and out of this first phase when we don't have the frontage road in. ' Is that kind of what your thought is? Hempel: Right. When the frontage road is, the most direct route to Galpin and to the north ' would be the frontage road from a speed traffic standpoint. Going through a residential neighborhood is slower. It's out of the way. ' Scott: So the frontage road does have to be in and connected all the way through to Galpin. I mean taking a look at this I would say at least myself, I would not be making a right turn into the twin home area. I mean I'd just continue straight out to Galpin and go up so I mean ' I don't see a particular reason why anybody would go through there. Conrad: But Dave, is there a potential. I don't see the neighborhood connection as a ' problem. I agree with you Joe. But let's say, is there a possibility for the frontage road to be built through Lake Ann, through this development up to this development but not being connected to Galpin... ' Scott: Yes. That would be a problem. Conrad: I thought that was where you were going. Scott: That we would not want to do. Then they will take shortcuts. So the question is, is that a possibility? Will we force the connection to Galpin to happen when we build the frontage road, whether it's north or south. Will that definitely be there on the same time frame that the balance of the frontage road all the way to CR 17 would be built? Hempel: Yes, that's correct. The frontage road is on our state aid route and in order for that route to be built, the frontage road would have to be connecting from two other state aid roads, which would be Galpin ... this one section of frontage road to this development and carry it east "to Lake Ann, no. That would definitely pull the traffic through there. Scott: Also too the, probably the development, I believe it's, I don't know if it's Mr. Gorra's. I believe it's Mr. Gorra's property. We're probably not going to be building a frontage road there until he decides he wants to put forth a project so basically the bottom line is, we're not going to get any assistance from the state unless we connect to Galpin. Hempel: That's correct. 25 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Scott: If we don't get assistance, we're probably not going to build it. Hempel: Right. Scott: Okay. Well as long as I understand where the money is coming from, I have a high amount of c rtainty that that connection, I mean I believe what you're saying but then that's the state getting involved and as a major partner to this particular construction project. Hempel: It would be of a financial... Mancino: So one last point to clarify. We could do Phase I and Phase II. Allow the right - of -way to preserve frontage road. Build Outlot A. And we can't build Outlot A without the frontage road, correct? I mean we're just not going to build the segment either from Galpin to the end of this property. Would we do that? Hempel: I don't believe we would, no. Too short of a stretch. We would extend that further on to the property... Scott: So the primary access would be from here and there wouldn't be any access to Outlot A from Highway 5 at all. Hempel: That's correct. Scott: Yeah, okay. Bret Davidson: Can I just ask a question? So in that ... until that was finished would be a temporary cul -de -sac going on to a stop sign then? Hempel: Phase I it would be a temporary cul -de -sac. Bret Davidson: And then with Phase II? Mancino: With Phase II it would be too. Hempel:' Phase II, I believe that we would want to see the frontage road construction. Scott: There'd be no access. Aanenson: It's not going anywhere. It's not connecting with anything. It doesn't connect with TH 5. It doesn't go anywhere so it's not serving any purpose except it's an interior street 26 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 for those front facing lots. It's not connecting to TH 5. It's not going across Mr. Gorra's property. Mancino: S'you could stop and have a temporary cul -de -sac right here. Bret Davidson: So what we're understanding is prior to that being hooked up to ... hooked up to the west. So there's no way we'd have a short stub there to make a short cut? Scott: No. Bret Davidson: Okay. That's my concern. Scott: I'm glad you raised your point. Yes sir. Rick Manning: When I raised the concern about traffic going through Windmill Drive, it actually would start through the Majestic Oaks neighborhood and then continue on through Windmill Drive and down into the frontage road. As I'm looking at that as development that's going to be done on Galpin Boulevard, you look at the school. You look at the 200, I think it's Centex townhomes across the street on the south. The southwest corner. When you look at Lundgren and they're developing 250 homes down the road. You look at Lake Lucy with 43 lots now. As the development that's going to be coming, I think you can be pretty assured that that traffic at that corner, at that intersection is going to back up all the way to Windmill Run. It's not going to flow through there. People aren't going to be able to get to the frontage road, is my concern. I shouldn't say that with, I mean that's my concern is that people won't even be able to get to that frontage road. When you think about the cars that are going to be stopped at that intersection. Scott: Well if they were not going to signalize that intersection like they're planning to in concert with the new elementary school, absolutely. But I would say just prior to the elementary school being open, that's going to be a signalized intersection. I Rick Manning: And I'm taking that into consideration even with the signal. Think of the cars that are going to be coming out of the neighborhood. Lundgren alone. You've got to figure about 350 cars every morning. Our neighborhood. Then the townhome development. I mean - signals or not, I'm pretty confident that those cars are going to be backed up on that road and they'll be backed up a long ways, long enough that I think people will be cutting through Majestic Way on the way to Windmill Drive and cutting through. Scott: Okay. i 1 27 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Amit Diamond: I'm not so good public speaking so I try. We have tried to reason and to bring up ... and we also tried to talk to the developer and we had that same speech over here I think about a week ago and we asked him a question and we said ... and the city asked him to put some single family homes as a buffer and I got to tell you, I got the answer as a straight no because the answer was that this developer doesn't build single family homes. Or single family detached houses. I'm not a builder but I think if you build a building, it doesn't matter what you build ... so I couldn't get any answer why he hasn't cooperated with the city in bringing up this ... or put up a buffer of single family homes ... most amount of money for financial gains. I personally, I got to tell you, I didn't know the name the city of Chanhassen up to a year ago when I checked with this state and I didn't know what Edina meant or I didn't know what Hopkins was or all this and I just basically hired somebody familiar with this place and he said, go to Chanhassen. They learned from the mistakes that Eden Prairie did. Eden Prairie is over populated. Put houses here and put houses there. Single family or ... there's a mix and it didn't work out too well. City of Chanhassen's more, he told me, is learning from their mistakes and is going to put in whatever low density. Is going to ... and not to combine so much high density in order to ... so I don't know the history of Highway 5 or what... I know what we were told, or at least I was told by my realtor that is who I trust... this place was going to be single family detached houses. I'm asking the city Planning Commission that if you do it anyway of changing the plan development and have a developer to listen to the neighborhood...I don't think we're going to lose so much money. I think they're going to be the same amount of money that there is now. And I do ask the property owner, if he has anything to say, to what we have concerns. The reason that we bought the houses ... and thank you very much. Scott: Okay. Can I have a motion to close the public hearing please? Mancino moved, Fwmakes seconded to close the public healing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. Scott: Ladd. Conrad: A question for staff. In terms of what the staff report reports versus what the developer lids shown us tonight in terms of increased landscaping and buffering. Does the staff report incorporate the little green marks that I saw on the overhead? What has the developer, is the staff report accurate in other words? Generous: Yes. 28 I i 7 7 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Conrad: And that's what the developers has done. So there's a significant amount of vegetation. The buffering, what is the buffering between the two areas? How many trees? Bob, do you know? Generous: Boy, I didn't count them. Conrad: We know there are going to be how many trees on this site? 300 some. Generous: Well there's 357 I believe all total. ' Conrad: And today there are how many? Generous: On the original plan they had half of that. What they have now, there's two ' stands of trees. Maybe 18,000 square feet. I've had BRW said they estimate that it was less but they went with our numbers. Just inbetween these two developments it was. ' Conrad: Has the developer done what you've asked them to do in terms of buffering the two sites? ' Generous: I believe so. They provided the vegetative transition or distinction between the two developments. ' Conrad: Dave, the 10% grading issue. It's not in the staff report. It's there but in the motion there's nothing relating to it. Does that mean you're comfortable? ' Hempel: It wouldn't be the only street to have a 10% grade. We have compromised in other subdivisions to reduce grading to save trees. If we had had an acceptable landing area in the bottom of the intersection there. ' Conrad: Do you have control over that? ' Hempel: Yes, we would have control with the final plans and specifications. ' Conrad: Okay. There's a part in the motion that talks about housing styles and colors. We hit this all the time. We can't dictate how many this and that but I'm curious. Every time we talk about this we say well staff take care of it. How do you take care of it other ' than making sure that the developer provides those options? Do we have any teeth? I think the community brings up a real valid point in terms of styles and monotony and I think this development is different than what they've seen. The community. But still it seems like a ' fairly upscale development but how do we assure variety? ' 29 1 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' Generous: Yeah, that's one issue we raised the first time and that's something that Brad and I have been discussing ever since the first report came out. How can we assure that? Well. ' Conrad: Wt do you do because the last time we just, the last development two weeks ago we said the same thing. ' Generous: Well they had a site plan approval so they gave us the specific building types that were different. The applicant has said that they're going to provide options for this. I don't know. Aanenson: I think if there's a concurrence, and maybe Peter can tell me this, if there's ' concurrence and you want to make it a condition, if they're agreeing that they're going to provide various colors, we can certainly make that a condition of approval. But that was always, and in Bob's original staff report, that was one of our concerns is the monotony and... ' visual impact. And changing the colors we believe is one way to break up that monotony. Conrad: Just a quick aside. Is this a case where we don't have the control we'd like? 1 Aanenson: Well it's a standard subdivision. We don't get into the business of colors on a standard subdivision and that's the point that Brad made originally but I think as Peter ' indicated, or someone from their team had indicated that they'd be willing to look at that as a condition. me but I think we need to work with the developer so the Conrad: That one concerns u p y will but I don't know that we do have the control on that based on our subdivision ordinance right ' now. I think we've talked about the other issues that I was concerned with. The other thing Mr. Chairman that I've heard that always bothers me is communication. It's folks hearing one thing and I guess it's easy to misinterpret. It's also easy to, I'll be brief. We heard too many ' people say they heard something other than what could have been allowed and I think at some other time, not tonight, I think we should take that issue up and make sure we know how that happens. It's extremely important that people know what's going in. Extremely ' important and I guess we should just be very updated on how the staff communicates the process so it's really clear communication. Those are my only points Mr. Chairman. Scott: Good, thank you. Diane. Harberts: I support the concept of the development. I'd like to see a little bit better transition ' though between the two divisions. It would certainly be my preference to see a PUD. I think the value, integrity is there of the site. I tried to locate other similar sites I guess in terms of transition of twin homes, townhomes, whatever you want to call them to single family occurs. ' 30 1 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 It's happens. It seems to work. People seem to be living there. My understanding Kate with ' regards to, I think I'm a little concerned. Ladd maybe touched on it and I don't know if that was the area in terms of the communication. In terms of what to expect if I was a homeowner'Is it my understanding that the land, the current zoning for the land, low ' density. No I'm sorry. It's low density residential? Aanenson: The current zoning is agricultural. ' Harberts: Oh agricultural, sorry. And that's where the representations were made by staff perhaps that usually in those cases that it is single family detached homes, is that correct? Generous: I can specify what I said. ' Harberts: Well in terms of the density of the homes. Generous: Yeah, we say single family homes. ' Harberts: Is usually what it is. ' Generous: Right. Harberts: But because of this rezoning that is being asked from us, to consider that or the ' opportunity for I guess a higher density of homes or other than detached single family homes, is that correct? 1 Generous: Correct. ' Harberts: And so that's one of the things we're acting on is if we want to change it from an agriculture to a zoning that would allow for more of a density of homes. ' Aanenson: What it's zoned right now is Agricultural Estates. The comprehensive plan, which is adopted by the City Council, guides it for future development. It's guided for low density. Low densit3(is 1 to 4 units an acre. ' Harberts: Which typically has been single family homes? ' Aanenson: Exactly. That's the way it was indicated. They said predominantly single family. That doesn't mean that other alternatives. We told you tonight there are other alternatives for you to consider. That could be a PUD with 11,000 square foot minimum lot size. We've got 31 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 those throughout the city. They've come forward with something that is consistent with the density requirement of 1 to 4 units an acre, which is considered low density. Harberts: A in your experience, or in the city's experience, this is the first type of change of this nature, isn't it for the city? Aanenson: Is it the first application for a duplex or twin home type? Harberts: Yeah, that nature. Aanenson: No, we had one. We had one... Scott: We had zero lot line twin homes. Aanenson: We had Spinnaker Wharf. Scott: Yes, thank you. Mancino: But we denied that. Aanenson: Because they were asking for an up zone to medium density. This isn't asking for an up zone to medium. It's staying within the guided zoning. Harberts: So in that one it wasn't the rezoning request wasn't. Aanenson: They were asking for, to go to a medium density because the way the ordinance reads, in order to less than, if you're going to go with a PUD, the minimum lot size is 11,000 square feet. Mancino: That was a PUD? Aanenson: You wanted to do PUD because we encourage them for architectural reasons. But if you want to do a smaller than 11,000 square foot lot, you have to have medium density zones which means you have to up zone it. Okay, so they were going beyond what was guided `in the comprehensive plan. You felt uncomfortable doing that and the Council concurred. They felt uncomfortable upzoning it and opening the opportunity for higher density, which would be the next 5 to 8 units an acre. Harberts: ...but anyway. I guess I'm going to, you know I see these pictures. I think they look nice and they look like very nice homes. I was commenting to Ladd that they have a 32 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 higher value than what my 3 year old home is. Single family home. If I was to look at this, my only hesitation is that I'd like to see a little bit more of a transition between the single family homes and the twin homes. I think the'twin homes are nice. They seem to meet, or are equivale'* or exceed the lot sizes of the single family homes but I believe the foot pads, as I understood it from the last meeting were similar in size. I'm not aware of what the values are. If I recall, when those gentlemen from Windmill came in with the development it was somewhere around $130,000.00 - $150,000.09 but I don't recall. For some reason that's what sticks in my mind. I guess I'm sitting on the fence right now. I guess I would like to see it as a PUD. There always are some signature pieces where we feel it enhances the development I guess for what we like to see at Chanhassen. I think the gentleman, the last resident that spoke made a good comment which was, we do care. We do take, we look at the details in our subdivisions that come in and under a PUD it would certainly allow that. I guess with regards to public safety. I know I received a letter dated December 5th and it talked about that it would not be safe to be routing multiple... housing traffic through streets lined with single family housing. David, do we have any information on records that would lead us to support that? That this might be a public safety issue. Again, I look throughout the city and I've seen some of this but I don't know that there's that kind of public safety issue. Given my professional life, I deal with things like that so I guess I'm asking if there's anything on record to help us understand if there is a public safety issue here. If this has been presented to the Public Safety Director. Hempel: This has been submitted to the Public Safety Department, building department. The comments generally come back from the Fire Marshal and street names and so forth. The street system proposed for this development is identical to the single family development to the north ... it's going to be a similar street section that you have ... townhomes in Chaparral I believe it's called just west or east of Powers Boulevard to the north here a little bit. I'm not aware of any problems with traffic. There's a normal type... In fact they probably have less vehicle trips in a day than... Harberts: Thank you. I guess I would certainly be willing to support this if I was convinced that that transition was there with the Windmill development and this one because that is an issue that we seem to be very sensitive to. I'm not convinced yet that that transition is there. That I'm comfortable with so I think at this point I would be more intent to deny this because I'm not convinced that that transition is there and that's what my big issue is with it. Scott: What kind of transition would you support? Harberts: If there was more of a physical barrier. Maybe if it was a berm or something. I'm not too sure in terms of how heavy the vegetation is there to make that kind of transition. Clearly a simple one would be to maybe have a transition of single family homes or 33 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 , someth in g of that nature. be less number of twin homes in that area. I don't know. I'm , Maybe certainly open to it. I'm just not convinced that that transition is basically at the level that we ' want to be sensitive to. Otherwise I think it's a good proposal. Did they go on record saying this is the deloper or is it just that they're thinking of it? Brad Johnson: We'll go on record that that's the development if you approve it. , Harberts: I know there was a comment from the attorney that it would be similar. Again in a PUD we're able to be comfortable with testing the interest of the residents as well as the ' community in a PUD. I would like to see a PUD. Even if it came back in a similar fashion. I'm alright with it but it's just the little pieces that I think with the input ... the material from the community, they've taken the time to provide input to this process. I think this process needs to listen to them but we also have a responsibility to the development. To the people that own the land. That's what the role of government is and ... I see that's what our role is. If I would see a little bit more of a transition I would be in full support of this project. I'd like to see more projects of this nature in Chanhassen and I'd like to go through a meeting without mentioning Myron Orfield's name because I think he's way off base. ' Scott: Thank you for your final comment. Wait a minute, hit the microphone 3 times. Anyway, Jeff. ' Farmakes: I'm going to start with a little different tact, although I don't disagree with anything I've heard so far. A property owner mentioned the term which came first, the egg or the chicken. That's an interesting concept here because we see this over and over again. We have a piece of farmland. You have a highway and you have a MUSA line that was extended to the west. First came the highway, then came the MUSA line and then came ' development. If you take that area of farmland which it's currently zoned for, after the highway and MUSA, then came Windmill Run. And you sort of ask yourself what dictates development in a situation like this. Some of you who have moved here from other states , may have come here from mature communities where you just didn't deal with this sort of stuff. The houses have been there for years, or decades, and you just never dealt with it. What we have here in Chanhassen is sort of a fluid situation, and as I'm sure some of the ' homeoWners who called me anyway and tried to discuss this issue. This is a fluid situation. This property is zoned Ag Estate. That's what it's currently zoned at so if you come in and ask a recommendation or you purchase property for single family when it was changed for ' your particular area, Windmill Run, you had to know that there's no guarantees from anybody at the city. That when that zoning is changed, what it's going to be. There's guides. A comprehensive plan but there's a process that follows and that's what we're doing right now ' today. We're going through that process. There's community input of surrounding property owners, we have developers, we have city staff and we have something that we haven't I 34 , n J C' Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 discussed here in great detail which is Highway 5 which really precipitated this whole thing. That's the egg. As we expanded that and we looked at which route was going to access to the city on the northerly side of TH 5, we spent 2 years dealing with that. So for some of you who ha just moved into the community, part of this besides dealing with the buffer on your development, that we're dealing with here, is we're dealing with an access road that goes all the way Trom downtown Chanhassen out to TH 41. And that also defines how that property is going to develop. Not only the property to the south but also the property to the east of you. And ultimately the property to the west. So you need to be knowledgeable about what is happening with Highway 5. And what is happening with that access road. I think Kate discussed the issue of chronologically where the city is at with which route. I'm concerned and I want to touch upon that briefly so it may seem like I'm jumping off to another point but I'm concerned that we have a vote on record to the southerly route and then we have a workshop meeting where consultants were called in to change that back to the northerly route and now we have a development showing us the northerly route again. It certainly would have been a good idea to at least keep Minutes of the workshop meeting then or at least have pro and cons being sold at that meeting as to where that route goes. I think the correct terminology would be to say that the Highway 5 task force, the majority supported a northerly route. There were dissenters to that direction. The majority of the commission supported the northerly route but there also were dissenters to that. If the city was going to get together in a workshop situation, I think also there should have been information provided to those who dissented. Not just bringing in people who support the northerly route. In my conversations with our consultants, it was a wash. And what we're dealing with here is really there's sort of a hidden agenda here and I don't mean that there's a plan on the part of staff or the consultants but what this is, what is hidden here is that where that road goes really defines how these properties develop and it compartmentalizes where those densities are going to go. Now to me you start at the beginning and this is why I voted against it both on the task force and on the commission, against the northerly route between Lake Ann and Galpin. Because it defines two...And I realize that some of the people from Windmill Run have not been following that park. Out of site, out of mind. It's farther away from you than the adjacent property but it's really going to affect the development of the properties around you so please become involved in that process. This is part of what goes on here. You're probably going to do this a lot more than you want to in moving to an area like Chanhassen but you've got to be part of this process. In here to complain. Call your elected officials and so on. I think ultimately what should go there is a PUD situation all the way to the highway. I would like to see the southerly route of the city acquiring a buffer along the highway as well as additional single family, at least two rows up by Windmill Run. The reason being is that if someone comes in now to purchase those properties, if they're adjacent to twin homes, townhomes, whatever you want to call them, then the developer's dealing with that. He's not putting that burden on the adjacent single family detached housing. That purchaser can make the decision whether they wish to purchase that single family home next to the twin homes. 35 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 That's their decision to make. As to the highway issue, I agree with you Joe. That you would not be driving that in that direction. But certainly again, premature to be discussing this highway. situation when we don't know where that access road goes. In dealing with the issue of col *schemes. I think the comment was, you're seeing this type of housing in Eden Prairie, on the ends here as you come into town by the Press. You're seeing large roads, the same coloret`houses and we've discussed this issue. It's cheaper to paint all the houses one color. And it's the economics of building. Certainly if you buy 100 of something, it's cheaper than if you buy 20 of this and 20 of that. It is disturbing, it looks like barrack housing eventually because of the similarity of that development. The last person that we had in here I think had 5 or 6 different colors but they were all muted types of colorations. I'm not sure if that's the current trend in that type of housing or not but what we're seeing up here is not. They're all gray or beige and so on. So variety I think again if you're trying to make a transition between single family, or what you see in single family homes, to that twin home situation where you have something that matches. As this stands currently, just to touch briefly on the issue, we're building this type of housing next to Highway 5. What I can envision as a row all the way out to TH 41, from what I see. Because we're looking to bring in, currently as we're looking at this, a retirees who want to buy $250,000.00 houses that they don't have to mow the lawn on. Certainly we're not looking at subsidized housing or low income housing based on these pricing structures that we've heard here. They seem to be higher medium priced considerably than the housing that's in Windmill Run. So that's not an issue. So if we're going, if we're driving this type of higher density housing along TH 5 and we need all that statistically, what is that we're accomplishing here? We're building more medium cost homes at $250,000.00? That certainly isn't helping the workers in United Mailing or whatever we were told that we need here. So I don't think that it's going to hurt anything statistically if there's a couple of rows of single family housing up there to buffer this situation. We're not losing any low income units that I know of. The issue of the park situation and going across, what is it? I believe 117 is a county road, is it not? Typically the proposal is lowering speed limits on these types of roads come with development where, as long as there's 7 or 8 farms, they're 50 mph. If you start getting 700 -800 homes in there, it's no longer necessarily true that the county's going to maintain a 50 mph speed limit. Again, that's a jurisdiction situation in the county. But I would think for those of you who have been here a short period of time, we're also wrestling in the Highway 5 issue with how the trail system works' and winds up at Minnewashta or goes over to Lake Ann and how these things also will be interwoven, so that's another reason also for you to become involved and knowledgeable about how this Highway 5 thing is working. I think that's it. I think I've given enough ... high points that have come up but I would vote to deny this based on that it's premature. Scott: Does that raise a bigger issue about any other developments that we might see that would come in prior to having this access boulevard formally platted? 36 I I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Farmakes: We can take the position that we will let the development drive where the road goes or that we will put in the road and let the developments follow the road. There's going to be one that's going to start the process and that's this one here and that's probably why it's out in front* us. That's probably why it has the northern route. Scott: So your thought process is that we should have a formal location of this road before we start entertaining development? ' Farmakes: Absolutely because where that road goes is going to affect the property to the east and the west. ' Mancino: That was one of the main purposes of having a Highway 5 task force. Was to be proactive. ' Farmakes: So what we're getting here is we're getting development coming down from the north driving where this road goes and it shouldn't. It should be the other way around, in my ' opinion. If you look at the intent statement of Highway 5, where it should go. Scott: Okay. Ron. ' Nutting: I guess first question for staff is, I'm still struggling a little bit with the definition of low density and there is the one piece which is the zoning and the units, and then there's the other which is predominantly single family and how did you resolve those two with this development in terms of. There's one piece that says predominantly single family which does not require to imply totally single family. But then there's the units issue which the ' development does comply with but. ' Generous: Well basically when it says predominant single family it's just a descriptive of the type of development that is taking place in Chanhassen. It's not prescriptive. The prescription is that development in the low density land use is between 1.2 and 4 dwelling ' units per acre. Implementation of the comp plan is through the zoning ordinance which provides, in this case with three different zoning alternatives for the property. The PUD, the RSF or the R -4 zoning categories. In this instance the developer brought forward the R -4 ' zoning which would permit mixed low density, twin home and detached single family. Nutting: Okay. I'd also like to just elaborate a little bit more on Ladd's first question in ' terms of the vegetation and the barrier that is proposed. What type of vegetation are we talking about? What will this look like winter time? Summer time. What is the plan and is that cast in stone or. 37 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' Aanenson: We can ask them to address that. Mancino: Is there any berming to it? ' Nutting: Yes, that was part of my question because that was one of the issues raised by the residents in terms of. I Peter Beck: The plan shows a combination of...in fact to address Commissioner Harberts ' question about the transition, Ross will be happy to put in virtually any kind of plant material in almost any amount that the Planning Commission would like to see. His plan shows what the ordinance requires. From his point of view that is far less than what he's going to do and , if the Planning Commission wants to see you know a lot more along that edge, it will be put there. A berm could be put there. If that is an issue that's of great concern to the Planning Commission. It can be, as I say, virtually any level of landscaping that you think would be , necessary. Staggered rows of evergreens on a berm of course is the maximum if there's one wall back there or something... little more aesthetic approach would be fine too but we will not let this project fall because there aren't enough trees there. We will put in whatever. And ' if you want to leave that to your, if you want to give your staff some direction on how we should go there, I can assure you that it won't be an issue that we felt they're asking for too much. , Scott: Any other comments? ' Nutting: I guess that's issue number one. Issue number two, echoing the issue of varying the color scheme. I've heard the previous discussion. In terms of going forward in the condition ' I would like to see some working together between staff and developer to provide a reasonable color scheme differential in the process to break it up so it doesn't look like the Rottlund development on Dell Road and Highway 5. I've been on the commission a year and ' I don't know how many times we've come up with these issues of the cart before the horse and it's happened time after time after time and I have a hard time disagreeing with a lot of those comments on that point. I also struggle with what we are supposed to do with the ' proposal before us and there's record for the southerly route. There's commentary towards the northerly route. That decision will happen at the Council level. We can move this project forward with approval only to have the Council turn around and say, we need to look at that ' issue before taking anything forward and moving it back. I guess my question always is, what is the most constructive use of everybody's time at our level and at the Council's level. Is it best that we table or deny until these issues are resolved or do we take the issue forward ' based on what's been presented with the assumption that the northern route will be there. If the northern route is not there, this is not the development likely that's there. I can't say that for fact but that's certainly a possibility. That's my struggle with this. I think it's a nice I 38 1 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 development in terms of the quality of the product that's there. I think that there are ways with proper vegetation and berming to create a significant transition, if you will. It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be what was imagined but when you moved you were dealing wit I - ricultural estate zoning which wouldn't yield this type of product but we're ' dealing with a rezoning and we're dealing with a product that, according to staff meets the requiremenis and spirit, although I'm not sure I fully agree with the spirit side of that but I'm not knowledgeable enough to give anything other than my opinion. So that's my struggle here is do we take what's presented to us and upon the assumption of the northerly route and move it forward. And it seems to me that that's a more productive way at times of dealing with these than the constant denial and tabling process. I'm not convinced that, if the Council ' has and makes the decision based on public opinion or hearing, that the northerly route is there, then this project is in place so. I don't know. I guess I'd like to listen to Nancy's comments and Joe's then put this thing to a vote. ' Scott: So your position is? ' Nutting: I'm leaning towards moving it forward with conditions dealing with the barrier, the transition and the color scheme I don't know, of the development. I would be open to requiring to bring it back to see more detail. The drawings or schematics or other things that ' laid it out there but that would be the only condition I would have. Scott: Okay, Nancy. ' Mancino: A couple of things. I thought Jeff had a lot of good points about this being p g g g P g premature and that is dependent upon where the frontage road goes. My concerns, this is ' based on the northern route. If the City Council goes in it's final resolution with the southern route, I then need to see to this development an east extension into Gorra's property because I ' would think that there, the Gorra property if you have the southern route, you're going to need a route coming from Galpin over into Gorra's property so this would need to be extended some way so that Gorra's property has, depending on what happens there but there needs to ' be, we need to look ahead into that property also. So if the City Council does pass the southern alignment of the frontage road, I would look at this plat differently. So the way it is to the north, T'm fine with the frontage road and the way it goes through the Gorra property because it will get us into there to allow development there. To go south, it just won't do it. And we" have so many times just looked at small parcels and have years or months later wished we would have looked past the individual parcel that we're looking at to see how it all ' connects. Secondly, I do agree with Jeff and Diane on seeing this all as a PUD. I would like to see it as an R -4 PUD with Phase I being single family. To have a transition between Mill Run. When I went to a couple of the sites, I noticed that the one in Eden Prairie is not ' completed. There's one townhome but there is quite a transition between the single family. 1 39 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Across the street from it is apartment and I think it shows on what we received from Country Home, that the single family that abuts these twin homes has a nature area between it. And so that they, -did consider it. It has not only a roadway but a nature area so they did have a nice transit" and I think that that would be in order here. So I don't see moving this forward until City Council makes a decision on the frontage road. Scott: Okay. Well I'll just touch on two issues. Just for those of you who are relatively new. We had a similar development. Actually it was more dense come through as a, I'll call it a PUD which is a planned urban development. Basically what that allows is that allows the City of Chanhassen more control as to the type of materials, the appearance, the mixes of density and so forth. What the developers get, and obviously it has to be a quid pro quo, is that they get more density. They get a little bit more flexibility so I mean people opt for that if they're looking at developing some sort of unique piece of property or there's some property with some particular difficulties. What we ended up doing at Mission Hills is it was abutting some large lot, 1 and 2 acre lots and what the developer did is they put single family housing along the area that was abutting the larger lots. And then from there they transitioned into six plexes, eight plexes and 12 and then I believe 16 plexes. That's what I would like to see here. There are two issues that I see. One is the transition. Assuming that the City Council puts forth a definitive answer as to where the frontage road goes, the only issue I would have with this development would be having a single family transition on the north end and that's something that we've done in the past. The bigger question however is that we don't know where that frontage road is going to go and I would agree with Jeff that we really need to have in I believe in concrete before we can do the kind of planning that we'd like so I would recommend, and I don't know what the vehicle is here but I would recommend sending on to the City Council, to make our job easier, that we would like to see the location. Mancino: And the developers. Scott: And the developer's job easier, to see precisely where this road is going to go. And then once that's in place, that's going to remove a large amount of uncertainty and allow us to do our job on I guess a more timely basis. So that's really all I'm going to say. I'd like to have someone make a motion please. Harberts: I'll move denial of rezoning 49.9 acres, Case #94 -14 with property zoned A2, Agricultural Estates to R -4, Mixed Low Density Residential, preliminary plat of 49.9 acres into 92 twin home lots and one outlot and the wetland alteration permit located north of Highway 5 approximately 1/4 mile on the east side of Galpin Boulevard, Lotus Realty Services, Lake Ann Highlands based on, I think the driving factor here is that the city, from my perspective the city is on record, it's the southern alignment. This plan is not consistent 40 ' Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 7 with what is the direction of City Council. The other issues include the transition and I ' would like to see a PUD process. Scott: Oka So basically you're denying the rezoning, the preliminary plat and the wetland t alteration permit in one motion? Harberts: Right. Scott: Okay. May I have a second please? ' Mancino: Second. Scott: It's been moved and seconded that we support the motion. May I have some ' discussion please, if there is any? Conrad: Yeah there is. I think the Planning Commission should have a little bit of a workshop on transitions. I really don't think we know what a transition is and right now we're talking, we've got 13 houses backed up to 9 and we're talking transition. The 13 houses is on the Windmill Run. The 9 is on this one. I don't know what we're, I think we're making ' some real arbitrary decisions. The premature, this plat, this subdivision is totally dependent on the northern alignment. It cannot go forward without approval of the northern alignment. It is contingent on the northern alignment. We wouldn't be doing our job as planners if we ' let it go and said well, if it's the southerly alignment, this plat is fine. It isn't. On the northern alignment, if that's the one, it in my estimation, with some modification, it works. If ' it's premature, semantics are rather critical here. We approved the northern alignment, what a year ago? My understanding is that probably the City Council should move on something within a year. I don't know if the development, I would call this development premature. It was our job to get a road in place. I think the task force did. The city is at fault here. The developer has all the right in the world. This is a sewered area. They have all the right in the world to come forward. So the city has to figure out where this road is going. This ' development is going to force that issue but unfortunately what it's doing is it's forcing it on a timeframe that may not be right. It should have been worked on prior to this and maybe somebody's ready to do something. The other thing that I'm just going to get, I'm counting ' heads and seeing where this is going but you know, so that's why I said workshop. I don't think we know what transition is. I really can't figure out what we're doing here is dictating that Chanhassen is going to be single family oriented because twin homes is obviously not ' single family. I don't know what we're going to do as a commission when somebody starts bringing in real affordable housing. We'll never be able to find transitions for it. Maybe we'll have a $70,000.00 house and then an $80,000.00 and then a 90. I'm really concerned 1 41 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 that we are not sure what we're doing. Reinforcing the motion. This can't go forward until the northerly alignment is approved. Farmakes: ' disapproved. Conrad: OP"disapproved, yeah. We could move that this is approved. We can approve this. That's not what the motion is but we can approve this contingent on the northerly alignment. That would have been my motion. Scott: Basically what happens from our standpoint is that it goes onto the City Council so it does not stop here. It goes on to the City Council and then they have to deal with that but actually it's, my thought process is what we want to see happen is having the access boulevard fixed into some location it is probably not fair for us to send this thing on simultaneous with having them locate the frontage road. My thought process is, I mean you have to have one first so denial basically sends it on, is basically all we're doing. Nutting: That then implies that the Council listens to everything we say. Harberts: Oh, which they always do right? Nutting: Which they've proven time and time again that they don't. Scott: Isn't that right Mr. Mayor? Mayor Chmiel: No comment. Farmakes: But isn't the reversal true. That the other implies that if you send a development with the northerly route, a couple of weeks after you have the consultants in telling you why you should go with the northerly route, it seems to me that there's a part missing out of there which would be the discussion as to why you should use the southerly route and that interpretation. Conrad: ; But if we as a commission voted on the northerly route. Farmakes: A majority. Conrad: A majority did. We also voted on some, I think we all endorsed the comprehensive, or the Highway 5, well and again there are exceptions but I think we all saw some higher density, medium density and lower density in this area. And this is following that. This plan 42 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 is following a lot of the things that this Planning Commission endorsed. The neighbors have ' some good gripes. This plan follows what we've said we want it to do. Farmakes: *though I would respond by saying that the same densities and the same plan could be followed with the southerly alignment. More creativity being used on the total parcel but of using the frontage road to compartmentalize where it goes. That was my. ' Conrad: And there are trade offs. Farmakes: This whole thing is nothing but trade offs. ' Harberts: I'll just reiterate. I think it's a good plan. I'm just uncomfortable with some of the aspects with regards to, I don't have enough information in terms of what the, I guess what ' some of the details are. I know under subdivision we don't get into that kind of detail. I think with what the community brought up though, I think it warrants that we at least insure that those type of details, those type of elements, that we can confirm back to them that the ' integrity, that the values are there. The question, when I asked, is this the developer. The response was, well if this is approved. Well that doesn't get us anywhere. I'm just looking for a little bit more solid. In terms of the transition. If the only issue is transition, I'd be ' more inclined to pass it on with an approval because you can do the berm or trees or something and leave it up to staff. But that was just a subpoint considering what some of I see the main issues are. Again, I'd like to see more of this type of development in Chanhassen. I don't think there's anything wrong with what's going on in the region. This is the best thing that's coming this way. It could be a lot worse folks. I know what's going on ' out there and I think Jeff has a flavor too. I think the City Council needs to look at some kind of direction in terms of goals. If it's affordable housing, if it's more multi- housing. I think this legislative session is going to be very interesting as well but like I said, I think this ' is a nice plan but all the elements aren't there for me so that's why I'm moving denial. Nutting: Diane, I take your point. You're saying that if it were just the issue of transition t that you could see moving it forward with. Harberts: With some type of status. ' Nutting: ...so your main issue then is the northerly /southerly alignment? Is that the main thing... ' Harberts: The main issue really is what drives development. Is it the developers or is it the road or what? Nancy brought up a good point too in terms of what's happening with the ' Gorra property. This isn't really addressing that. In a PUD you have that opportunity. It's all 43 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 , I I I of those type of things. But like he said, I like it. I like the proposal. I like the concept. It's just that not all the dots are connected for me but the real driving point is that this isn't consistent with what's on the position by the City Council. Ladd you're certainly - right. You ' could say yc know, you know subject to whatever the approval is, and I also think that the City Council, sure it's not an easy job but they have to get on a position and my understanding they are by the resolution and that's what I'm following. I think that this is a ' good project that forces the decision. I hope it forces the decision because we've got to get going. That's one of the problems with government. We sit there too long. , Scott: Is there anything else? ' Nutting: Yeah I guess I just want to echo Ladd's comments because I've heard this issue, and not a very long period of time about transition and it takes a different form with each development but if the transition is always to be single family, you've got the same issue even ' with the transition of the transition. You're going to ask a developer to come in and say, we want you to put single family here and then put your multi unit townhome or other development there. It may or may not develop with those requirements. The developer may , have the same issues as the residents. I mean it's a real can of worms. Farmakes: But there's several developments here like that ... there are several developments ' here that the developer's strings are sort of weighing itself there for single family to have transition. Nutting: No question. ' Farmakes: It's not necessarily units or how many units of property. It's also, it could be ' types of housing. Nutting: Well types is numbers. ' Conrad: We obviously figure this, you've got a buffer with single family. That's obviously ' the leaning of the commission. And how were we going, how were we ever going to make a transition to`Iighway 5? I don't understand it. Farmak I think your hearing in the marketplace here right now. It's not necessarily in this ' cases, these are homes probably more expensive than the houses they abut. So it's not an issue of economics. It's not an issue necessarily of sight. These are nice houses. It's an ' issue perhaps of the types of housing and perhaps the housing next to it. In other words, not the adjacent property. The property after that and how many units you're looking at in a short period of distance. So the question here is, you're hearing what the market's saying. The 1 44 ' I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 I markets coming back and saying, I bought single family. I want to see single family next to ' me. That's where it's at. Nutting: TM's where everything is. ' Farmakes: We had the same problem with a couple of the other developments in here. Once that was taken care of, the resistance died down and I can't say that when we look at a buffer situation that you're going to come up with one solution for everything because I'm amazed ' by what we, the berm that we're seeing over on that property on Minnewashta Parkway and TH 7. It looks like a fort. That's not a berm, that's a hill. ' Conrad: I think we should move on but I think we've got to talk about this stuff because we're creatively, we're ad libbing. Nutting: The other unknown for me is, to put it to rest is, what do we then get with the PUD process and what type of development will evolve from that. Will we get, maybe we'll get ' the single family home buffer because we can control that but then what's the rest of it, and economics, it will drive everything in the process because it's driving the development right now. But there are give and takes in the process so. ' Farmakes: We will create the same problem that we did when we approved Timberwood up there. That's going to be the nucleus to drive all the development around it and should it be ' that way? Should that be what dictates that in this regard? After all the monies that have been spent along the highway and 2 years worth of work and studying. It seems to me, not only for this property, but adjacent properties that what you're proposing in the current motion ' that's out on the floor is appropriate. That we should know where that is. ' Mancino: Staff, or Bob, could you answer the question about what do you get with a PUD that Ron asked, versus a regular standard subdivision? ' Nutting: I know there are, my question is what is the developer going to want to put with a PUD versus with the standard approach. That's where, they're not going to answer that. They don't have that answer. ' Peter Beck: We will answer it. Harberts: I think we should call the question. Conrad: Yeah. 45 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Scott: Okay, there's a motion on the floor to deny the three items before us. Harberts moved, Mancino seconded that the Planning Commission recommend that the City Council denRezoning 994 -7 rezoning 35.1 acres encompassing the land north of the north Highway 5 collector road from A2, Agricultural Estate to R4, Mixed Low Density Residential ;ltb deny the Preliminary Plat #94 -7 and to deny the Wetland Alteration Permit #94 -6. All voted in favor, except Commissioners Conrad and Scott who opposed the motion, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 2. Scott: This will go to the City Council on the 9th? Aanenson: January 9th. Scott: This is not the end of the process. Please follow your issue and I'd like to thank you all for coming to this and do you guys want to take a 5 minute break? We'll reconvene at 15 after 10:00. REVIEW OF CONCEPT PLAN FOR REVISED PLAT FOR TOWER HEIGHTS. Public Present: Name Address Renelle R. Ulrich 6581 Nez Perce Drive Dick Osgood 22035 Stratford Place, Shorewood Daryl Fortier 408 Turnpike Road, Golden Valley Todd Noteboom Doherty, Rumble & Butler, Mpls. Larry Moloney Doherty, Rumble & Butler, Mpls. Todd Johnson 1061 Lake Lucy Road Teresa Schrempp 1041 Lake Lucy Road Karen Green 1021 Lake Lucy Road Teresa Drake` 980 Lake Lucy Road Jay & Marlene Payne 1081 Lake Lucy Road Linda Barck 960 Lake Lucy Road Colette McKinnon 941 Lake Lucy Road Kristi Weinstock 1101 Lake Lucy Road Tom & Anne McGinn 1121 Lake Lucy Road Bryce Fier 1040 Lake Lucy Road Len Kluver 1080 Lake Lucy Road 46 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Darryl LizAnn Wills Scott McCann 1060 Lake Lucy Road 1100 Lake Lucy Road 1 Tom Scott: '''he Commission has a report from our office outlining why we're here tonight for this matter and let just summarize that real briefly. Back in May of last year the city initiated coAdemnation proceedings to condemn a lot owned by Frank Beddor for purposes of extending Nez Perce Drive to Pleasant View Road. Mr. Beddor then sued the city challenging the extension of Nez Perce on environmental grounds and that matter was, continues to be in litigation. It was tried before the District Court in Carver County in February and March of this year and the trial court judge in Carver County in July of this year decided in favor of the city and dismissed Mr. Beddor's lawsuit. Mr. Beddor has appealed that decision to the Minnesota Court of Appeals and that appeal will probably be decided sometime in June or July of this year. Now recently, as outlined in my report to the commission, Mr. Beddor's attorneys have approached the city about a potential, conceptually a potential settlement of the lawsuit. And what that settlement would involve is that Mr. Beddor would drop his opposition to the extension of Nez Perce to Pleasant View Road so that Nez Perce would in fact be extended to Pleasant View Road. Second component of this settlement framework that Mr. Beddor has approached the city with is that he would donate to the city the right -of -way over his property upon which Nez Perce would be constructed. The city would drop it's proposal to take the entire lot that Mr. Beddor owns. And the third component of the settlement would be that the Tower Heights plat, which is a 13 lot subdivision that was approved last year, which there was preliminary plat approval. As it was approved it would access to the north, to the extended Nez Perce Drive. Now the concept that's been proposed by Mr. Beddor now is that the Tower Heights plat would access to the south through an outlot that the city owns onto Lake Lucy Road. Now what we're looking for the Planning Commission and the City Council next Monday, is direction as to whether or not the city wants to consider a settlement of this lawsuit to end this litigation which would involve this framework. Nez Perce being extended through to Pleasant View Road and with the Tower Heights Addition being replatted to access to the south, utilizing this outlot to Lake Lucy Road. If the city is willing to consider that type of concept, and obviously the main component is whether or not the access to Lake Lucy Road of the Tower Heights Addition. If the city's willing to consider that, then we will go forward and negotiate a settlement agreement with Mr. Beddor conditioned upon formal plat application with the revised Tower Heights plat. Formal approval of that, ultimate approval of that plat and ultimate approval by the City Council of the overall settlement agreement. So that's why we're here tonight. To see whether or not the city, the commission and next week the City Council, wants us to move forward with a settlement that would be structured along those lines. Mr. Beddor's attorney, Larry Moloney is also here and I believe he'd like to make some comments to the commission at the appropriate time. 47 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' uestions or comments from or is there an more staff? I Scott. Okay. Q y Harberts: What is staff looking for from us specifically? , Tom Scott: We're looking for direction as to whether or not we want to consider this type of settlement which would involve the Tower Heights plat. The concept with the Tower Heights ' plat accessing off of Lake Lucy Road. Harberts: What's staffs recommendation? Aanenson: We haven't looked at the plat. All we're doing is asking for your input. Obviously , if it's something conceptually, you'd recommend that to the City Council. They would still have to make a motion on it. Then it would have to come back through the platting process. What we're looking right now is this something you'd like to consider as an option for the , settlement of the city. Harberts: Mr. Chair, in my perspective, I don't have enough information to, I guess what are ' we compromising. We went through the process. It got approved. The city had, they wanted to condemn this property, or whatever the steps they took, that's what they took so they had an idea of what they wanted to achieve. I don't know what, by compromising or by ' settling, what that would achieve. If we would still achieve our overall goal or not. I don't know that. I guess if we could still achieve our goal without compromising it, fine. Then let's move ahead because we're creating a positive situation for both parties. If we're compromising it, if the city is compromising something in which we're not achieving our goals, I would be more reluctant to say no. Let's go on but again, I don't have enough information to really give you much more than that. ' Tom Scott: Well the thing that would be accomplished is number one, the litigation would end. Number two, Nez Perce would be extended through to Pleasant View Road. ' Aanenson: Which was the whole reason. , Tom Scott: "'Which was what the battle was all about. Now at the same time that that issue came up, the Tower Heights plat also came in at the same time. ' Harberts: Yeah, I recall that. Tom Scott: And the Tower Heights plat was designed to access off of the extended Nez ' Perce Drive. But the main battle, the main objective was to extend Nez Perce Drive through to Pleasant View Road. That would be accomplished by this settlement. ' 48 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Harberts: But at the same time, what other neighbors, what other residents would be ' impacted? What would be the impact? I recall there was some kind of grade consideration. Scott: Welke issue, as I see it is the, and I believe it's very bad planning to do this, is that ' there is, it's kind of confusing so I got a hold of an aerial that I think really in my mind points it out. Basically the bottom line is, I'm sorry you folks can't see this but Nez Perce is supposed, and we can pass this around. Nez Perce is supposed to come through like this on t actually Peaceful Lane. I believe it's JMS who's got the development here. Their property is going to access out this way. Well part of the settlement is that of course this goes through but this development will go out the back onto Lake Lucy Road. Now the houses that are in ' place now are not shown on that and Dave, if you could tell me, how much, what's the actual dimension inbetween the two homes that are situated on either side of that outlot. Or if one of the, do you happen to know how far apart those? I was there, it looks like, I don't know ' 50 feet. Hempel: The outlot that the city owns is a 50 foot wide outlot. The homes that are set back ' from the property line I believe about anywhere from between 24 to 28 feet. Scott: Okay, but were there variances granted to place those homes where they are? Are ' they too close or are they within the setback? Hempel: I believe they are within the setbacks based on the status of that outlot at that time, ' it was an outlot. Kate may want to touch on the setback issue. Tom Scott: Yeah, I can also discuss that one. I believe they're 27, 26 feet back from the ' outlot. At the time those homes were built, it was designated an outlot. It's not a dedicated roadway. It's an outlot. So that it was determined by the Planning Director at that time, Mr. ' Krauss, that they did not require a 30 foot setback because it was not a dedicated right -of- way. It was an outlot. So they were permitted to build closer than 30 feet which would be the required setback if it were a dedicated right -of -way. ' Mancino: Excuse me, it wasn't a dedicated right -of -way. So why do we have the outlot? ' Tom Scott: It was, as is often done in the planning process, it was designated as a potential future access point at some point in time. ' Mancino: So it's always been designated that way that a road may go through there at some point. I Tom Scott: That it may. 1 49 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 ' Mancino: That it may. I Scott: Yeah, there was a comment by Mr. Krauss that was in the, these are the City Council ' meeting Mites of July 12, 1993 and one of the things, that was my question too is that, you know why have the outlot and his final comment was, "there seems to be an implication that ' the city wasstudying or is thinking about studying the widening of Nez Perce south of Lake Lucy Road, or Pleasant View Road itself, or an additional connections to the Fox Chase subdivision." Which I believe Fox Chase, now that's on the other side of Troendle? t Tom Scott: Yeah Fox, it's further to the east. Scott: Okay. And none of these are in fact the case. None of those have been talked about ' the 4 years I've been involved with this issue so I mean that's another part of it but the thing I'm trying to figure out is that if we do in fact have two homes and we have what, 25 feet, we basically have 100 feet inbetween the physical houses that this, as part of this settlement we would be putting a 30 foot section through. Hempel: That's correct. Scott: And the grade, as I recall, would go from 1016 to, it's like an 8 foot drop. I just got ' that from the grading plan. Dave talk a little bit about, what is that going to look like. It just seems to me to be kind of a. Hempel: The rough grades that were proposed on the grading plan I believe did range, at one ' time they looked at a 5% slope on there which necessitated extension retaining walls at the property line or slope easements to do the grading beyond the outlot. There was also an , attempt to reduce that impact by increasing the street grade through there. Anywhere up to a 10% street grade. In doing so, it did lessen the impact to the adjacent properties but some grading may have to be done. I'm not, I don't have the plan in front of me on what the ' grades would be. Scott: So basically what the trade off is that if, as settlement of this litigation Nez Perce gets , connected, but the Tower Heights subdivision is going to have access off of a relatively steep roadway that's going to be put inbetween two existing homes. That's basically the trade off is ' that Tower Heights ends up off ingress and egress to Lake Lucy Road. Mancino: And they'd have to have a variance. Correct? ' Hempel: The final street grades haven't been. 50 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Mancino: But they'd have to have... variances in here because of the setbacks. ' Hempel: The setback would be an issue I guess. ' Aanenson: It could be a legal non - conforming situation unless they try to add to it. Tom Scott: Well, the setback of the homes? Mancino: If you put the road in, then you would have a variance too because there'd be corner lots and two fronts and you wouldn't have a 30 foot setback. ' Tom Scott: That's correct. They would be within the 30 foot setback once the road is put in. ' Mancino: So we would have to grant a variance. Harberts: Well I think, again I'd just like to mention to the commission, I mean we're looking at technical detail that in the past we usually rely on staff to look at. Bring forward the recommendation. The only thing that I'm understanding here that you may be looking for is do we make a recommendation to you to take to the City Council. Should we try and settle ' this to prevent any further litigation? From my perspective, I don't have enough information to say that. I would have to vote no, that we don't settle. That we go forward simply because I don't know what the alternative here is. It seems that if the city, we went through ' the planning process. The City Council was adamant about yes, this is what it was. That's why they litigated with the resident on this that they wanted to move ahead. Now all of a sudden we're halfway through, or all the way through, or part way through or what, and ' they're saying that okay now, okay maybe this isn't such a good thing. Let's come back. I don't have enough information and I don't see how the, unless we have technical information in terms of what the impact is by compromising, we already started walking into other questions about setbacks and road grades and things like that so, I'd be the first one to settle in terms of a compromise but I don't know what I'm compromising on so at this point my position is no until I get some technical information to make a decision here. Scott: Well `there's also an interesting situation here is that we saw the development, the ' preliminary plat approval, and is there anybody from JMS here or any representatives of JMS? Those are the guys who own the land, and they're not here. I mean we have someone, I have a problem with. If I was in their situation and I see somebody else replatting my ' property that I've already gotten preliminary plat approval. Larry Moloney: I could probably address that. 1 51 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Scott: Excuse me, this is not a public hearing. Yes sir. Tom Scott: , Chair, that's talked about in my report and I didn't mention it in.-my summary bi'his is premised upon the fact that Mr. Beddor will obtain control of the property and will in fact resubmit a plat along these lines. And if this concept is something that the city wants to consider, so. Harberts: I think that I'm open to any considerations but from my perspective it has to go through staff, to our experts to tell us. Conrad: It's real tough to react tonight, seriously. Harberts: Yeah, I can't. I'm open to it but. Conrad: Mr. Chairman, I really think we should, I don't know if we need to table this or not but I couldn't tell you a thing. I've forgotten most of where we were when we wanted to runt he roads a different way and to say, should we settle the litigation means I'd have to reconsider the whole road alignment and why go off Lake Lucy versus why go off Pleasant View, or Peaceful Lane. Harberts: I'd rather see a recommendation from staff before I can say either or. Scott: Or I'd like to see too a drawing that shows, here's where the two homes are. Here's where the road's going and then something that says, okay there's going to be a retaining wall that's going to be 8 feet tall here and then as we know, when you have a grade like that and you're putting in a 30 foot section and there's any sort of a grade, there's going to be earth that's going to have to be moved that will probably end up on the, I assume end up on the property of the people next door. I don't know. Tom Scott: I guess what the intent tonight was to simply see, assuming the engineering details work and assuming that the commission and the Council are ultimately satisfied that those things "work, conceptually do we even want to move forward with entertaining this type of layout with Lake Lucy, with this plat accessing to Lake Lucy Road and Nez Perce extending through. And maybe, and what I'm hearing is that you don't feel you even have enough to react to the concept. Scott: Can we get some other comments? Harberts: It could be a good plan but I don't understand. 52 I Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Farmakes: Kate how, I mean even if we were to vote on this, how could you sort of ' disregard what took place during the public hearing because there's no input. Scott: We Aeady made a decision. ' Aanenson: T know. Farmakes: That would be made by the surrounding property owners. Scott: Well it's like saying the access boulevard is going to go south and then all of a sudden it goes north again. I mean we made a decision. Farmakes: Well it's cutting a deal without open debate. ' Aanenson: No, this is just conceptual. ' Tom Scott: We just want to get, that's one of the reasons we came here because, and that's why all the residents were notified that we wanted number one, conceptually we want to know whether or not it's even worth negotiating with Mr. Beddor on this particular concept. I ' can understand, maybe you don't feel you have enough information to even give us that direction. If it's worth pursuing, then we would go forward and negotiate with Mr. Beddor. Reach an agreement subject to, which would involve formal submission of the replat of this 1 property. Go through the platting process with a formal public hearing and then ultimately for the City Council to decide on whether or not they'd approve a replat to end the settlement ' agreement that would go along with that. So the purpose of this is just, are we wasting our time in either pursuing this concept or should we move forward. t Mancino: To me you're wasting your time pursuing this concept as it is in front of me. What I would look at, and this is really out there, is number one, I mean you'd have to get approval from JMS that they would do this. Secondly, I just would not see the road going in ' the outlot. I would not approve a variance to the homes because those homes have been there for I don't know how many years but quite a few years. The only way I can see at all going onto Lake Lucy is if Beddor actually buys one of those homes. When the homeowners ' actually_ wants to sell the house and land to Mr. Beddor, and they would have to say yes. Scott: Is it for sale? ' Mancino: Is it for sale? Or trade for a new house ... but I mean that's how far I would need to go to conceptually say yes. And those would all have to fall in line for me. 1 53 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Nutting: It really comes down to do we want to say conceptually yes with no guarantees. I mean conceptually sure. Go ahead but you're going to have to come back with a plan that's going to have to go through the process and it gets through the process and we say, no. We liked the wt we did it in the first place, you know. Scott: Welhhe City Council made their decision twice. And the Minutes, in fact the Minutes that we received, I think it was Ms. Dockendorf or maybe Councilman Mason made the motion and Ms. Dockendorf seconded it or vice versa, they said no. We already made our decision. And personally I feel, we already made our decision. Harberts: Well I don't want an answer to this question either but you know I'd like to know where our position is as a city in terms of this case. But again, I don't want to know publically. And second, I think staff did a great job the last two times, or one time. So at this point based on what I have in this document, my position is no. We just go forward with the path that we're on. Again, I would rather see a recommendation from staff but based on what I have right here, my response as an individual is no. Scott: Do you want to go down the line and give the input. Ladd, what do you think? Conrad: I don't have a clue. I couldn't react one way or another. Scott: Okay. I'd say no. We made our decision once and that's enough for me. Mancino: I say no. Farmakes: I think it would be a bad precedent. Scott: Ron? Nutting: I don't have a clue either. That's not a no, that's not a yes. I hear you. I always get into these conceptual issues too. It's like the concept but I understand what you're trying to do. This is a litigation decision that's trying to drive a response that can't happen. I don't know, I think we're going to have to. Mancini: But we have a particular. Nutting: I think we just from a, we have to decide where we're going to go. If we've got a case, you take it forward. If we don't have a case, then you get with city staff and everybody else and say, we need to look at bringing something forward... 54 I L I u Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Harberts: I think Jeff said it well too in terms of precedence because it doesn't reflect well on the city's decision making process, or the staff experts. I'm not willing to put ourselves out there. 4 Scott: Well and also too, when as we go through from the District Court to the Court of Appeals to whatever, the Judge, is it Goggins or Groggins? I'm sorry. Tom Scott: Goggins. Scott: Goggins. Not only did he find for the defendant, which is the City of Chanhassen, but he also ordered the plaintiff to pay a portion of the City of Chanhassen's legal fees. So in my mind that's a pretty strong statement that we are on the right path. Tom Scott: We have a strong legal position. There's no question about it. Scott: It's ... issue of-and it's like we back off and you guys save money, give us what we want. That's what. Tom Scott: We have a very strong legal position. This is a matter of ending the litigation and saving that cost and secondly getting this road, Nez Perce extension constructed during the 1995 construction season. Mr. Beddor will be donating the right -of -way instead of us condemning his lot and paying him for that. There may be some other financial things we can build into the settlement. The reason we're here, if from a planning standpoint the city does not conceptually want to consider utilizing that outlot off of Lake Lucy, then we go nowhere with it. There's no sense spending our time on this so it's really a planning issue on whether or not we want to consider using that access. And if we don't, then fine. If we're willing to look at that then there are financial issues relating to ending the litigation and the acquisition of the necessary property to build the Nez Perce extension. Scott: Well I think we gave some pretty good, we have four no's and two, no los contondres I guess. So is that sufficient for you to know what our position is? Tom Scott: 'That is sufficient. Scott: Good, well thank you very much. Tom Scott: Thank you. Scott: Do we have any new business? 55 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Mancino moved, Harberts seconded to approve the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dat November 16, 1994 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried. CPTY COURCIL UPDATE: Aanenson: The Shamrock Ridge plat which was reconsidered by the City Council regarding grading, the applicant at the meeting recommended dropping two lots so that's how the Council approved it. With two less lots which would be the most westerly portion had 4 lots on the private drive. One was dropped and then the other cul -de -sac, there was 5 homes and one lot was dropped off there so now there's 4 there. They approved Hoben's Wild Wood Farms. They approved the preliminary plat for Powers Place. And then they tabled the amendment for gazebos. Some of the issues that Nancy had concern about. The definition. They wanted to make sure that we've got standards as far as electricity, plumbing. Make sure that we've got enough control on that so that was tabled to give some more consideration for that. And I did have one other item that I didn't put on here but McGlynn's is doing another addition and I just wanted to let you see, take a minute to look at, just take one second, their plan. You know they are on the Highway 5 corridor. It's less than 10% addition which the Director has the authority to approve but I did want you to see the addition because they do have two different components to that building. One is the industrial component, which they keep snapping additional phases on, and that's how that building was designed. It's kind of a precast. And then they've got the office component and what they're going to be adding on is additional, what they call welfare which is really locker rooms and that. So I asked them to give some renderings just to make sure that I was comfortable with it visually what they're doing. The problem is those two types of architectures really don't tie together. Although the portion that they're on isn't really the portion that's seen from Highway 5 but I just wanted to give you an opportunity to see what it's going to look like and see if you had any additional comments. Otherwise I was going to give them approval. It's a small addition. This is the industrial portion where they're adding on right now, where the loading docks are and they're redoing the landscaping. They're screening, actually it's going to be a better screen visually for the loading docks. And the part that they're adding on is right in this area here. Scott: That little do dad? Aanenson: But what I'm saying is the office component, when it got added on a few years ago was a completely different architecture than this and what we said in the Highway 5 design standards is that you can have different components but they need to have harmony or a theme carried through. 56 J J 17 1L I � � JI Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Mancino: Compatibility. Aanenson: Compatibility. The only theme that there's this theme here ... but that's about it. And you'vet two different colors. But on this portion here that they're adding on and this side here, you can't really see because it's the southerly portion of that. The frontage road will be to the north. So I felt based on that, I wanted to see... Mancino: This is already here? Scott: Yeah. That's that office piece... Aanenson: I asked about that. That was one of my recommendations and it's all locker rooms. Harberts: Well what about something that. Mancino: It needs something. Harberts: Yeah something that compliments there like color tile. Scott: Maybe something like color. Aanenson: Do some banding. Scott: Yeah, there you go. Same color to kind of give it, yeah... (There were a number of comments being thrown around at the same time at this point.) Scott: Thank you ma'am. As far as open discussion. I would like to open the floor for nominations for Chairman or Chairperson. Personage of the Planning Commission for 1995. Mancino: I think we should wait until we see who's going to be on the Planning Commission: Harbert§: But do you think it's going to be a new person? Mancino: You never know. Aanenson: Your first meeting, I don't think the, the City Council will not be making a decision. They've got one more meeting and they will be making recommendations in 57 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 January but I don't believe before your first meeting. That they'll have a recommendation by then so your first meeting is January 4th. They don't meet until a week later on the 9th. Do you want to„ stay the Chair and wait? You may want to do that. Scott: Can we nominate somebody now? Conrad: We should wait. Scott: Well think about it. I think we should think about it. Think about who a likely candidate would be. Ladd, I think you've got a lot of experience. Conrad: No, I'm not a candidate. Harberts: Neither am I. Scott: That narrows it right down. Harberts: Why won't you be? Scott: Oh no, no. I said I'm not a candidate. Harberts: Well neither am I. Scott: Well wait a minute now. Is there some rules of succession where the Vice Chair becomes Chair? Has that ever happened? Conrad: Yes. Farmakes: I think that's an ordinance. It's somewhere in that book right there. Scott: But anyway, we'll think about that. Any open discussion? Mancino: Yeah, I have a couple things. Scott: Yes ma'am. Mancino: One thing that I would like to do as a commission is once a quarter, and actually this is just a suggestion. Scott: This is when you're the new chairperson you'll be able to do this. 58 I� Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Mancino: Yeah, once a quarter is to take an hour, maybe before the Wednesday evening meeting. Maybe it has to be, I'd like to do it in the daylight hours, and go and see some of the subdivisions that we have passed and that have gone through us and see what °they're like now and acally, you know you do it in a business. After you've worked on a product or a plan you actually put it in front of you and you do some evaluation on it and I'd like to do that. You know. I'd like to go as a group and say, look what we did. What would we like to do differently, etc, etc. And you know, once a quarter would be very helpful to me. And I'd like to do it as a group. Scott: Then we'd also be able to go, well that's not what I thought it was going to look like. Farmakes: We did that? Mancino: Yeah, what do we learn from this? Harberts: Do we have to do it, can we just do it during like a meeting time instead. Mancino: Well that's what I laid. Harberts: Take a meeting and do it. Mancino: I don't care when. I just know that at night at 7:30 in the winter, it's not going to. Harberts: Well I can tell you at 5:30 you won't get a bus. Peak. Farmakes: One of the things that I noticed we were arguing the issue about signage. We've done some things that were right and we've changed some of the applications that have come forward and a lot of that stuff has given us a better building. I think that there is a resentment to that but I guess the question is, do you roll over and give that up? Maybe we do. Maybe the Council says we get into that too much. Maybe we should be dictating that. Maybe we should be looking the other way. I can't say. There's no doubt that when you look at that S &A or you look at what happened with, the compromise that they came up with Abra or some of these other things. Those weren't everything we were asking for but they're certainly a better product than what we've had. Scott: And there's an indication that, what I consider the general public to actually have ' noticed it was a fellow who mentioned the Taco Bell. He said and you guys, da, da da, and here's what, and sometimes, at least I think sometimes that what we do perhaps is not noticed. But to me I thought it was very gratifying to have that fellow step up and actually somebody 59 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 from the general public actually saw it. Because you take it, see the public is taking this standard for granted now and I think if we did have. Nutting: Is''at good or bad? Scott: I think it's good. I think people are, the tone is when you come into town and you see a Goodyear and an Abra and... Nutting: I'm just talking about the Taco Bell... Scott: Can I just make a comment of something that is now becoming near and dear to my heart. In 1996 our city is going to have a centennial celebration. It's going to be this year long thing and I was invited to the first meeting on Monday. And one of the things, I think it had a little bit to do with planning, is that there are a number of farmsteads that are in various stages of disrepair and part of the architectural heritage of our city. And one of the things that's going to, there's a fellow named Marlin Anderson came up with this great idea. He's going to call it the Habitat for History where part of the thing he's doing for the centennial, among other things, is to raise funds to try to maybe pick a particular example and there's a piece of, there's a homestead on the Arboretum property that is particularly interesting. But anyway, one of the things we're planning from that standpoint is actually getting some people together who are interested in the preservation of some of the historical architecture in town, which there is very little, and take these people around to show them these sites. Harberts: I think this is another bus trip. Scott: I think that is. But anyway, I'm not going to say. If you're interested in it, let me know. We're going to be meeting in the first part of January and kind of planning where we're going with it. Harberts: Actually I'd like to, Joe if you could let me know when they're going to meet again as a group for the centennial planning. Scott: I'll put you on the list. Harberts': Yeah, I'd like to. Scott: And anybody else who's interested but other than that I don't have anything. Does anybody else have any open discussion? .1 r Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Conrad: Have we gone through our plans for the coming year? Kate gave us a list once upon a time of stuff that she was going to do. Have we reacted to that? Scott: I ha1n't seen that. That used to be a regular part of the packet. Conrad: I just threw it away. Well that was an ongoing deal but she gave her 1995 goals to City Council or somebody, and maybe, well I got it in the packet. I think it's so important that we beat the issues to the pass. We don't win killing issues like we may have tonight. We win by thinking about what the issues were and spending our time fixing it for the future. I guarantee you, we don't accomplish a lot in some of these meetings. Farmakes: Can we drive that decision though Ladd? Conrad: Oh yeah. Farmakes: Isn't part of the process though that there must be an application like the one we saw tonight that must drive that process? Conrad: I think we could have. Farmakes: When we vote to deny it, it now goes onto the Council and now they must make a decision as to where they want to be. Not with that application... where that alignment goes. Conrad: We didn't do a thing. We have nothing to do with it. The developer did that. Farmakes: But we could have tabled it. Conrad: For a short period of time. The developer is still causing it to happen. We didn't manage the process. ' Farmakes: We could have tabled it for 2 months until they made the decision but that will help, that will force them to make a decision. ' Scott: If I could just make one comment. The only, and it's something that I remember Batzli said probably the first day I was here and it didn't sink in until a little while later, is that the only control that we have in the process is to table. And that's the only time we get ' what we want is we say, this is Mr. or Ms. Developer, this is what we want. You're here for a while so humor us or whatever. Whenever we deny something, it's like we're not even here. 61 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Conrad: There's part truth to that Joe. All it does though is it delays something. It doesn't, if they need to break ground, then you've got some leverage. If they don't, then we have none. The point is, when we see important things, whether it be Highway 5. Whether it be trees. Landscaping things. When we see those things, we've got to get ahead of the issue. Then we have total, those things just fly through here. You know we don't debate landscaping' that much anymore. We don't debate some of these things... Mancino: But I think part of the way that we get ahead of things is that when staff knows that somebody's applied for it, maybe we have a work session that talks about transition. Maybe it comes up at that time because it's applied for, may be a month before it gets to us. Conrad: Well we'll never. Farmakes: Affordable housing. Tell me how we're going to jump the gun on that? They can't even define it. Conrad: Yeah, there's one I can't define. Mancino: No, but what was brought up tonight is not only transition but also we're going to have more and more multi - family because, as you said, it's going to come along Highway 5. How are we going to, we're all concerned about the monotony of one color. We're all concerned about the monotony of the same architectural features. What do we do? I mean you brought up a very good, and not only do I want to talk about conditions but I want to talk about that also because it's going to keep coming up and I, for one, don't want it to be just a sea of 90, I don't care whether they're twin homes, I don't care if they're quads, I don't care if they're triplets, whatever you call them, of just a sea of these things all the same color. The same architectural. I don't think that does our city any good. Conrad: And those are some issues that again, along with planning for '95 we should be bringing up. Should we examine it? What are our priorities? There's so many things going on and with development pressures, we won't get to many but I just want to make sure that we take a look at what her priorities are and that we agree and then we put those things that we, over the last year that we have seen as issues and decide if we want staff to play around with iv, Farmakes: To me the ultimate intent, solution for that area north of Highway 5 is PUD all the way to Highway 41. Conrad: But you can't force that. 62 1 J I 1 1 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Farmakes: But you can't force that. Conrad: So why talk about it? Mancino: You can rezone it. Sure you can. Conrad: No you can't. The developers got to a�ree. You've got to lure the developer to get into a PUD. Mancino: The City Council can say that they will rezone it PUD. Conrad: No. No. If they can do. Mancino: If the can meet density. Conrad: They can do, as long as they meet, they can do a subdivision where, as long as we meet all the rules. Farmakes: They can't, I don't think they could rezone it. The applicant has to ask for a rezonement. Conrad: But they could sue us you know if we don't do it. Scott: We could change the guide. ' Mancino: Exactly. Because Roger said that the only way to do it is rezoning. It has nothing to do with density or anything else but if you want to stop it, you don't approve the rezoning. Conrad: Yeah, and if you do it after the developer comes in, you can't do it. It's illegal. You've got to beat them to the task. You've got to beat them before the proposals in here. Otherwise we don't have anything. We've wasted staffs time. We're trying to do one thing and they know they can't do it. Farmakes: But the rest of that property, as far as I know, other than individual homeowners, ' that's really the only development on the north side of this existing that probably would border that type of housing. Mancino: Yeah, you're right. 5 63 Planning Commission Meeting - December 7, 1994 Conrad: Jeff, you're never going to vote for anything that goes on the north side of Highway 5 because it's not to your liking. I don't even want to try to persuade you on anything any more because I know that you don't like what was voted on. Farmakes: No, actually I thought ... that wasn't the point though. Harberts: Can we call the meeting and then you can... Scott: Can I have a motion please. Conrad moved, Harberts seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carved. The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Planning Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 64