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PC 2011 06 07 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JUNE 7, 2011 Chairman Aller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, Kathleen Thomas, Tom Doll, Mark Undestad, Kevin Ellsworth, and Lisa Hokkanen MEMBERS ABSENT: Kim Tennyson STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Angie Kairies, Planner; and Terry Jeffery, Water Resources Coordinator PUBLIC HEARING: CITY CODE AMENDMENT: CONSIDER AMENDMENTS TO CHAPTER 18, SUBDIVISIONS AND CHAPTER 20, ZONING OF THE CHANHASSEN CITY CODE CONCERNING EROSION CONTROL. Jeffery: Chairman Aller, Planning Commissioners. Thank you. Briefly, what began this was Minnehaha Creek’s change to the NPDES general stormwater construction change and then evaluating in-house erosion. We are just looking at amending Chapter 18 of the code and what it references. Briefly the changes highlighted here in red, it is just simply adding the phrase and Section 19-145 of the Chanhassen City Code to Section 18-62 of which deals with land development. Subdivision. The motivation behind this really was in our current plan, or current code in Chapter 19 we reference the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit, general permit for stormwater construction activities. The issue we run into is we have several discrepancies. At one point in Chapter 19 and again actually in Chapter 7 we talk about any land disturbing activity, yet at the same time in Chapter 19 we also say that it must comply with the NPDES which sets a limit at one acre so to clear up that discrepancy, and in conversations with our city attorney, Roger Knutson it was decided that it would be better to itemize those criteria within our code rather than try to reference an outside document which is actually the Code of Federal Regulations as opposed to a State ordinance. Or State statute so, and then this would also allow us to deal with some of those smaller issues that we have, which actually the first opening picture. These are the kind of issues that currently we really don’t have a way to address them but they’re there and they’re probably a larger contributor than a larger construction sites where they have managers on site to watch…so proposed what will change is we’ll clearly define the threshold rather than being anywhere from 0 to 1 acre. It’ll be any land disturbance of 5,000 square feet or greater, which is roughly one-third of the current lot size in the city. 50 cubic, or 50 cubic yards of material which is what our grading permit is triggered at anyway. It’ll be any time we need an earth work permit where there is land disturbing activity and then sensitive areas which can be anything from the Seminary Fen to impaired water to what’s defined as a water state which would be if you were doing work at the back of curb right in front of a catch basin or something that would allow us to do that to request that you put up a bio-roll or something of that nature. The intent is to not have a homeowner that wants to put in a deck have to come up with the full blown erosion control plan for us, but for us to have a way to Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 sit down and talk to them saying if you could just put some perimeter control in this area and then lastly so what, we’ll have a checker and I apologize that wasn’t with your packet. I did try and make it available for all of you and really what it is it’s just itemizing the requirements of the NPDES. That is drafted at this time. It still needs to go through staff review and through council approval but generally it’s just again taking the NPDES permit and itemizing it within our code. That’s really all I have if you have any questions, I’m happy to entertain them. It is a public hearing. Aller: Terry, is the only change that this sheet would have is that it actually itemizes what we would have referenced anyway so whatever that turns out being is going to be itemized and in the statute. Jeffery: That is correct. With one exception. In your Chapter 19, there is, because we have to meet the Minnehaha Creek requirements, and they have a requirement where, if I can find where it is. I apologize I cannot find it at this time meaning maybe I’m trying to not put it in yet. Rather than the 4 inches of topsoil they’re requiring 6 inches of topsoil at the end. That may end up being within Chapter 19 at the end. I’m looking at that or offering some alternatives. One of them being deep ripping the soil after construction’s done…which probably would not be any cheaper but it would be an alternate. Other than that it is specifically just… Aller: I found in the issue portion of your documents that you were going to incorporate that at a later date so. Jeffery: Okay. Aller: Questions from commissioner? Question. Doll: I have a question. So a homeowner comes in and says you know, tries to get a permit to do some building and what kind of additional cost is this going to do to a budget and you know a homeowners has? They don’t know, I mean do they have to hire a specific erosion control specialist? Jeffery: Chair Aller, Commissioner Doll. No. At this time what we would continue doing, what we’ve been doing at this point. As they come in with a site plan of what it is they want to do, we would typically at the staff level red line for them where we’d like to see further control and then we’ve asked them to call me or Kristen Sprier to come out and inspect it. Our intent is not to make the homeowner putting in a deck have to go and hire a consulting engineering firm to put together a full plan set for them. Just to make certain that we are protecting the downstream resources in a way that’s efficient, yet not…too restrictive. Doll: Okay. Aller: Okay. Seeing no further questions we’ll open the public hearing. Anyone that wishes to comment, please come forward. Seeing no one coming forward I’ll close the public hearing. Comments. 2 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Ellsworth: None. Thomas: Nope. Aller: Motions? Undestad: I’ll make a motion. The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends the City Council adopt the attached ordinance amending Chapter 18 of the City Code. Thomas: Second. Aller: Having a motion and a second, any discussion? Undestad moved, Thomas seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends the City Council adopt the attached ordinance amending Chapter 18 of the City Code pertaining to erosion control. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: CITY CODE AMENDMENT: CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 20, ZONING OF THE CHANHASSEN CITY CODE CONCERNING VARIANCES. Kairies: Good evening Chairman Aller, members of the Planning Commission. Tonight we’re going to discuss variances and what’s been going on with variances lately. Previously variances were determined by the rule of hardship and our previous interpretation of that was putting a lot to reasonable use and having reasonable use of the property based on the neighboring uses and things of that kind. However, in June, 2010 the Supreme Court ruled the Krummenacher versus City of Minnetonka case which changed the definition of hardship to the property cannot be put to reasonable use. That means you have a single family lot and you cannot put a single family home on there based on setbacks, unique circumstances of the property, things like that. So during that time period we had, we pretty much stopped any variance process and that gave us the opportunity to look at what we’ve done in the past throughout the city. So we catalogued from 1990 to 2010 the variances that we’ve had. There we go. And what we found is that the majority of the setback requests and the approved requests were for setbacks. There’s a whole array from accessory structure area to hard surface coverage, wetland setbacks, sign variances, things like that but again it was setbacks that overall were the majority. And of those setback variances it was a front yard setback that was the most frequently requested variance. In May, 2011 the legislative fix went through which the Governor signed the statute in May which went back to more of a practical difficulties determination on hardship so that an example of that would be if you have a legal non-conforming structure and the setback is non-conforming, you can maintain that or build up from that so it’d be something along those lines of again putting the property to a reasonable use. So just to look at the difference between the old rule of hardship and the new, is that again looking at the hardship and the practical difficulties versus you can’t use the property at all. Second is keeping the old was keeping in spirit and the integrity of the zoning ordinance and sticking to that. The new one is being in harmony with the general purpose and purpose of the ordinance. Again consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. You 3 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 cannot just based on economic, increasing your economic value. If the use is not permitted in that district, you cannot grant a variance for that. It shall not alter the character of the locality. That would be the same. Again it cannot be a self created hardship so if the property owner has done something so that they don’t meet the requirements, you cannot grant a variance. And with the new law we can impose conditions that are directly related to their request so mitigation to go along with the request. And staff is recommending that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the ordinance and if you have any questions I’m happy to answer those. Aanenson: Chairman, if I can just add a couple things. Going back to when Angie catalogued all those variances, I think that was an important step just to show you kind of where those fall in because I think there’s kind of a maybe a misperception of where they’re falling. Maybe they’re all hard cover so part of that cataloguing and Angie kind of glossed over this but part of it we wanted to see is, do we need to amend our ordinances separate from the variance because part of that, the litmus test for the variance is if we have a repeat that we need to look at. We have given relief, and sometimes when we do a PUD we give a front yard setback for maybe it’s the back of the yard’s a steep slope or for some sort of reasons to preserve trees so we’ve looked at that so and part of doing that exercise of kind of cataloguing what our issues were, we wanted to see, because some cities to kind of work parallel with the variance thing is to say maybe we need to re-visit our, or to redo our ordinances or see what the issues are. Maybe we can just fix it that way so we’re not processing so many variances. Kind of alleviate that pressure but in looking at that we really didn’t see that as an issue as far as trying to go and make a whole hearted. We went through the different zoning districts. We have some of the older zoning districts because some cities as they’ve evolved, if you’re maybe more a first string suburb, that maybe they start out with one zoning district and over time they’ve amended that zoning district 3 or 4 times so you know in our circumstances we haven’t done as much of that. We do have some older zoning districts which we’re looking at. We’re actually going to come back to you. Angie’s working on that right now. Coming back with some of the older PUD’s and tying those standards in and maybe making recommendations for some other zonings but I just wanted to show you that, we kind of wanted to do, also go through this exercise to see as a part of just adopting the variance process, that kind of where we stand today and as our current zoning ordinance, does that need to be tweaked at all. I don’t know, did you want to add anything to that Angie on some of your research on that? Kairies: No, just again with some of the cities had done other permits too to allow for that so expansion permits and we didn’t want to necessarily go that route because we didn’t have a blanket of things that were requested or in a specific area. Aanenson: Yeah. So we think going with the new ordinance should provide a remedy of relief for those people that have it. We do have a few people that are waiting to see this go through and again it is a path for people that have a situation that denies them the ability to try to rectify or seek relief from the ordinance which they should have so and as Angie said we’re recommending approval of that. Aller: Thank you. Any questions? 4 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Ellsworth: Yeah Mr. Chair I’ve got a few. Angie, the word harmony is in here a couple times. Is that in the statute? Kairies: That is in the statute. Ellsworth: So we really have no idea what the legislators had in mind when they said that. And then I noticed in item number 1 on the general conditions for granting, that it says when the variances are consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. Wouldn’t that imply than kind of what Kate was saying, that the ordinance is not consistent then with the Comprehensive Plan because they should kind of go hand in hand and here we’re saying that we’ll grant the variance if it’s within the intent of, or consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. Kairies: That’s consistent with the old ruling as well that we’ve always stuck by. Aanenson: Yeah, I would say too again when you look at the Comprehensive Plan, and I think Angie spoke to this too that it designates lower high density. Within that you have a range of zoning applications so it says low density but within low density you could have a twin on a single family so going back to, same with commercial. Their’s is kind of a menu of choices for commercial so as Angie pointed out, it doesn’t mean if it’s residential you can apply for a commercial, which you’ve had people ask to do. Can they get relief to turn my single family home, it’s on a busy street, into a barber shop? You know so that’s saying no. That’s not a tool that you can use for the variance. Ellsworth: Yeah, you can’t request a variance outside of the Comprehensive Plan. Aanenson: Right. Ellsworth: That’s more clear, thank you. Aanenson: Yeah, and I think sometimes people even think with the zoning though too you know, everybody in my neighborhood’s large lot. Can’t I get a variance too to subdivide my property. Get relief from the ordinance and that’s not, again that’s not a tool to use for this sort of application. Ellsworth: Okay. And then it’s if all of the criteria are met and so item 3, that the purpose of the variation is not based upon economic consideration alone. You know it seems like any variance is based on economics. Kairies: Right and it’s more, if you take say the mother-in-law apartment. It’s more because you want to help your, a family member. It may increase the value of your home but your purpose is to help your family member and not to have two dwellings to rent so. Ellsworth: So it’s more for economic considerations for the property because it’d obviously be economically advantage to have maybe your mother-in-law live with you than in an assisted living facility. 5 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Kairies: Right. Ellsworth: So different economics then. It’s on the property itself. Kairies: Correct. Ellsworth: And then practical difficulties. Unique to the property not created by the landowner. And then you touched on that a little bit, that if they could fix whatever it is that needs to be fixed, that they should do that and not ask for a variance but is there a circumstance that you can envision where you know they’ve caught themselves in a catch-22. That they can’t undo something that they’ve done and therefore we wouldn’t allow a variance. You know drove over the septic field or something with heavy wheeled equipment and they want a variance for a setback against the neighbor for instance because they wrecked the area where the septic would go. So would we say nope, sorry. You can’t build a house there. It seems really black and white right there. Kairies: And it could be a situation where it’s, they may have the ability to fix whatever problem it is but economically they choose not to and would rather go the variance route. That’s something that we would look at on an individual basis. Case by case and typically staff looks to see if there are alternatives. If they can fix it. If they can bring whatever that non-conformity is back into compliance before we would recommend approval. Aanenson: I think that’s the beauty of the wisdom on seven planning commissioners to see you know, to weigh those factors. You know is the cost of the improvement they’re trying to make or the you know exceeding the remedy of the situation as Angie said but often if it’s a sloped lot, something happened to it. It’s an older house that doesn’t have a garage. Everybody else in the city has at least a one stall garage. Is there a way, there’s no other way to get it on the property so I think that’s where we try to, or Angie spends a lot of time working with somebody to try to find the best solution and then ultimately rely on your wisdom and then if you can’t make a decision or they’re aggrieved of that, then they always have that appeal process so there’s really three steps to go through that they can kind of find some way to collectively get to a good decision. Ellsworth: Good, thank you. Then one last item on the variance legislation table. The last one, number 8. The new condition must be directly related to any and must bear a rough proportionality to the impact created by the variance. So the conditions placed on the petitioner can’t be onerous compared to what they’re trying to do? Could you illustrate that a little bit for us? Examples maybe. Kairies: Yeah. Hard cover would be a really good example where to mitigate that maybe to have some sort of drainage solution, infiltration solutions so that we can make sure that that water is being treated. The excess and not going directly into the storm sewers. There have been cases where gutters have been required so that that water is flowing in the right direction. Not directly towards the lake or towards the bluff. 6 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Ellsworth: So it looks like this is used to hold and reign us in from putting conditions on the homeowner that might be onerous to them. Doll: That’s how I read it, yeah. Aanenson: Exactly, that’s what it’s for. To say you don’t have to reforest your whole back yard in order to you know, so it’s got to be that proportionality and then that again that’s kind of your wisdom to say what’s the value and what’s the proportional relief, or mitigation… Ellsworth: So is the proportionality then, would we look at that in economic terms? Is that how we would measure it or what would we use to compare the burden based on the conditions versus the benefit of granting the variance I guess. Jeffery: Chairman Aller, if I may. Commissioner Ellsworth. I’ll go back to the hard cover thing. I think that’s the easiest one for me to explain but I think for our purposes it’s, are we offsetting the, the reason to have the code is to prevent some type of damage of long term, short term. The hard cover it would be to prevent that runoff from downstream issues so if we can say it’d be prior to their development they have one half acre foot that runs off their property in a 10 year event. If they can demonstrate that if we were throwing these other mitigating factors, we would still only have one half acre foot or less running off the property. They’ve now met the intent of the hard cover purpose, or at least the largest intent of it. Obviously there’s green space. Now they’re reasonings so to me it would be mitigative for the potential damage caused by granting that variance. The proportion to the maximum…economic necessarily. Ellsworth: Well the proportionality I guess it brought it back to what it was before whatever action they’re taking. But the proportionality of the impact, I’m, I guess I struggle. Is it a rain garden or is it a whole control structure that does sediment control and you know that’s hard for me to gauge. What’s the downstream impact and what is that cost to society versus you know what the cost is to mitigate that. That’s why I struggled on that last one because I’m not sure how I’d approach that if a case came here. I don’t know if I could interpret that properly with what I know now. Aanenson: If I can, I think we’ve always tried to give you a menu of choices to do, and sometimes the homeowner you know, and that one’s a little bit easier to address. Some of them are less, if you have a neighbor that needs to put a garage on their property and we feel that’s a hardship because there’s, you know not having a garage in the winter sometimes can be a burden and the neighbor says you know that’s right outside my kitchen window. It’s really going to be a hardship to me to look at it that close and so then we say okay, what can we do to mitigate? Now we’re kind of in a different, you can put up a fence. Maybe you can ask them to do that. We can ask for additional landscaping so we’ll kind of give you those ideas. Let the neighbors kind of talk and see what they think so you know we really try to give you some choices that seem to make sense. Obviously there’s different economics for those decisions, so the neighbors try to work it out to see what works best for them too so I think in every situation there’s all different types of, I’m trying to think of some that we’ve done recently where we’ve suggested you know sometimes it’s re-grading a rain garden. 7 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Ellsworth: It seems to be, it’d be challenging for us to defend it if a petitioner said well that’s disproportioned. Aanenson: Well I think you know, well yes but I think you have that right to do it and you know I think we’ve been pretty successful in getting them to do that. The first choice and Angie spends a lot of time is trying to lessen the impact right from the beginning. You know not increase the hard cover. Finding some other solutions. Try to move the setback to the least impact. That’s the first choice, and that’s always an option too when you can say well we can’t find a way to mitigate that impact. We really don’t want to give that to you because if it’s going to increase the runoff and we can’t slow that down, or if we’re really going to impose on the neighbor’s property, you know one foot away, then we probably wouldn’t want to do that either so I think we kind of give you those range and that’s really part of the whole process to see if there’s a way to reduce that impact so. And sometimes in this public process we come up with an idea that nobody thought of that seems to solve the problem so, we just haven’t seen any for a while. We used to be processing quite a few of them. Yeah I mean, you know like Angie said I think too the easier ones are if you want to go two stories up. Going on top a second and it’s a non-conforming setback and you’re just going vertically up. You know you’re not increasing the hard cover. Those aren’t as much of an impact as the additions that encroach in the side setback or affect a drainage pattern or the sight line of somebody. Those seem to be a little bit more challenging. Can you think of some other ones that kind of the frequent ones that are offensive to somebody else? Kairies: When it gets to, I think when it gets to a point where you’re encroaching into the bluff setback or a shoreland setback, a lot of times the neighbors kind of get worried about that and so it’s again making sure that we are impacting that area as little as possible and working with the homeowner in ways to mitigate that or just kind of working with them and helping them you know re-design if they need to. Give them other ideas. Ellsworth: Okay, thank you. That’s all I got. Doll: Is the language that this came up with, is it drafted by the planning department or? Aanenson: City attorney. Doll: He did, okay. That was my question… Aanenson: The statute was drafted and signed by kind of by you know the League of Cities and, but the City Attorney recommended that language based on our court law. Doll: Okay, that’s was going to be the follow-up. Did he look at this and he agreed with the way it was written. Aanenson: Yes. Kairies: He did. 8 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Doll: Okay. That’s all I have. Aller: Anything else? Okay. Having no other questions for staff, we’ll open the public hearing. Anyone who wishes to come forward. Seeing no one come forward, we’ll close the public hearing. Comments. I think it’s already been looked at by committee. Looked at by counsel. It pretty much makes sense to me. It looks like it gives us the ability to help people where possible without changing the fact that we have to look at the hardships. Would anyone like to make a motion? Ellsworth: I’ll move the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the City Council adopt the attached ordinance amending Chapter 20 of the Chanhassen City Code. Doll: Second. Aller: Having a motion and a second. Any discussion? Ellsworth moved, Doll seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council adopt the attached ordinance amending Chapter 20 of the Chanhassen City Code pertaining to variances. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Thomas noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated May 3, 2011 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS: None. CITY COUNCIL ACTION UPDATE. Aanenson: So in your packet the council did approve the Powers Crossing so that would be continuation of that. That was for the potential office building on Powers Boulevard. Ellsworth: That was just an extension of what existed? Aanenson: Just an extension. So it keeps the entitlement in place. Ellsworth: Does he have any plans do you know? Aanenson: Yes. Yes. It may come back a little bit different but yes. Ellsworth: And nothing you can share at this time? Aanenson: No. Ellsworth: Understood. 9 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Aanenson: And then Liberty at Creekside, same thing. Actually there’s somebody else looking at that piece of property so that one may come back different. There’s some interest on that one. Ellsworth: Where is that? Aanenson: That’s actually, if you were to go through LBK’s property. It’s the Jeurissen piece which is, you have to kind of come down through Mr. Degler’s property. Kind of it’s up on the top there’s a wetland restoration area below that. And then the City Council also approved the BP and Angie’s trying to hook up with them to kind of see where they are in the process to get rd that going. And then also on the 23 they approved those other amendments that you saw recently. Code amendments. Ellsworth: Kate when does that sign go up because I noticed that sign on the BP, I thought it was after we talked about it. Aanenson: That sign’s been there. Thomas: That’s been there. Ellsworth: Has it really? Aanenson: And you know it’s actually too close to the corner. That’s why they’re not re-doing it. They’re leaving it legal non-conforming so as far as the location of it, it’s non-conforming so. That’s why they’re leaving it there. That’s it for. Aller: And when is the council going to act on the motions that we made today? Aanenson: Actually at their work session next Monday I’ll be talking about the variances. Kind of give them a little bit of a flavor of what your concerns were or what your issues were. Talk about what we brought up and then they’ll actually go on consent in two weeks from that. And then we do have Angie’s got someone that’s ready to come forward with a variance and that would actually be July. th Kairies: 17 I think. th Aanenson: 19. th Kairies: 19. Aanenson: Yep, would be, they would be coming in for that one. Ellsworth: A test. st Aanenson: So if I may Chairman, so on the future commission dates. On the 21 we do have a future water tower that you’ll be looking at. That’s on the West Minnetonka Middle School West property. Kind of the high zone it’s actually called, and then as I mentioned earlier 10 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Angie’s going through all the PUD’s, and this is kind of what paralleled tracked kind of those variances. We’re looking at those older PUD’s. Found some interesting standards back in those in the late 70’s and so we’ll be making sure that that underlying zoning district matches and maybe we can actually roll those into a different zoning. There’s some old residential PUD’s that date way back so we’re kind of dusting those off and getting those straight. Now it’s a good thing to do because people that…if someone came in and wanted a variance so then we had to go backtrack and research so it’s actually really ties in and it really actually weaves into the discussion that we just had so cleaning up all those and it also then allows people to proceed and make some choices on their property. It’s a good thing, especially if people are selling they kind of know what they got so. Ellsworth: Kate that was one of the things in our work plan? st Aanenson: Yeah, that’s coming up on your June 21 so we’re going to show you all those PUD’s. We’re just going to show you what we have and what we’re going to recommend. Then we’ll come back with a public hearing so it’s just kind of more discussion. Aller: Thank you. ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION. Aanenson: And then before we go into the work session I was just going to also share with you the administrative section. I’m going to work harder in trying to put things for you in there. Just kind of what’s going on so I just wanted to take a minute to go through those. In the census, the reason I attached this now is that they’re trickling out information. There was some good information which we didn’t have before which is actually a housing tenure so if you look on the back page of, the first page on the fact finder it talks about housing. How many housing units we had so this is our first glimpse at how many are vacant and how many are for rent. Rental vacancy, that sort of thing so that’s good information that we didn’t have until just a couple weeks ago so. Vacancy rate and rental vacancy rate wasn’t too bad considering today’s time. We are driving the city too. Looking, we have a list of houses that we know are vacant. Kind of following up on those and see if others pop up on the list so we can kind of monitor those. Sometimes those are also problems as far as property maintenance code issues so we try to stay on top of those to make sure they’re not an issue but again that’s just for your information. Kind of what’s going on in the city. And then the second one I included in there was the Minnesota River study. That open house was held, Paul Oehme, City Manager and myself went to that meeting and so MnDOT’s studying actually the river crossing at 41, 101 and 169. So what they’re looking at is based on the fact that there’s an increased frequency of flooding closing 41 and 101 and then they were looking at the economic cost of that so they looked at the frequency of the closings and the duration of the closings and added a cost to that. So the study that you have is kind of includes just a little bit of it. They actually did the designs for the Shakopee, or the 101 crossing. The 41 crossing. What the bridge could look like and you can see the 101, the frequency and the duration of the closing. The same with the 41, and then would 169 be more enhancements like they did before. They actually striped another lane to increase the frequency so they’re studying those three as potential kind of a stop gap while they’re studying the new 41 river crossing which isn’t even on the books yet which will be past 2030 so in order to keep 11 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 transportation moving. The economic cost of that so we’ll keep you informed on that but that’s in the works. Actually you know 101 has the biggest impact because it’s, it has flooded the most and has the longest duration. So then finally just included, this was on KARE 11, Land of 10,000 Stories so I just wanted to include that in your packet too so things of that of interest. Kind of try to include those in your packet. Aller: Great, thank you. Doll: Can I ask, the trail on 41, did the wetland issue go through or are they still looking at that? Aanenson: Yes. That same gentleman will be having a meeting with the city engineer regarding the future location of the water tower. Doll: Okay. Aanenson: So they’re having a neighborhood meeting on that this week because, or next week maybe because you’ll be seeing it on your next Planning Commission public hearing so. Ellsworth: On the 101 crossing, did they talk in the open house at all, or maybe Terry you can talk about this too. It seems the propensity for flooding is really increased in the last 10 years. I mean you look back at the histogram, it’s amazing. And is that because of the upstream practices and you know you read in the paper the arguments back and forth about tiling and not tiling and the impacts. Jeffery: I cannot speak specifically to the increase flooding on the Minnesota River but yes. Right now actually the Science Museum is doing a study on it and is finding that flood frequency, flood duration and flood magnitude have all increased over the last 8 years. With the Lake Pepin TMDL they have the same findings as well so, what I have read to this point is what’s come across my desk compares that. And with that 101 crossing, we had that moment, we actually met today on the Bluff Creek TMDL and found…from MnDOT was going to go back to the designers because those culverts that go underneath 212 and 101, where the triangle is there. Ellsworth: Yep. Jeffery: They were put in in the 1930’s. They don’t capacity to handle what’s there. They’re removing roughly 500 to 800 cubic yards of material every spring so if you think about 50 to 80 dump trucks every spring are getting pulled out of there. Ellsworth: That’s out of what Bluff Creek leaves behind and we think we’re taking care of that one pretty well. Often wondered why MnDOT was down with the big claws. Yeah, didn’t know that. Aanenson: Yeah, that’s what they’re doing, yeah. 12 Chanhassen Planning Commission - June 7, 2011 Jeffery: And those culverts are designed with 4 foot of draft. They’re already you know base loading within that current because at 3 feet so you really have about a foot to 2 foot depending on where we’re at to get that through there. The settling velocities decline there because it flattens out and everything falls out there so it’d be good to extend that design to be able to address that issue. Ellsworth: You know a year or, well it’s probably 2 years ago now, Carver County was cleaning out the ditch on Pioneer Trail and they were just out there with their claw digging stuff up and putting it aside and it seems like well there’s no silt fence. There’s nothing and that runs right into Bluff Creek but yet we hold landowners to a much stricter, obviously this is not a new issue by the looks on your faces. Jeffery: And there is a gray area between utility maintenance and what’s required for that. What’s emergency and what’s routine maintenance. By law the last 200 feet of any conveyance must be stabilized before it leaves a property, a MS4 or discharges to a public water so. Ellsworth: And they may have done that. I didn’t notice at the end but just. Jeffery: Often times they will go in and take care of it. Maybe there’s a culvert included or clean the ditch. I think over time people’s awareness has started to increase to the point where that very point that you made. You know we can’t hold, we can’t have two separate standards. Ellsworth: So who do we call? Jeffery: Me. Ellsworth: Okay. Jeffery: I would be the best person to be calling. Aller: Okay. I think that concludes the business so entertain a motion to adjourn. Thomas moved, Doll seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 7:40 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 13