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PC 2011 07 19 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JULY 19, 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, Kim Tennyson and Lisa Hokkanen STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Angie Kairies, Planner; and Terry Jeffery, Water Resources Coordinator PUBLIC HEARING: CHRISTENSEN VARIANCE: REQUEST FOR VARIANCE TO ALLOW AN ACCESSORY STRUCTURE (HORSE STABLE) IN EXCESS OF 1,000 SQUARE FEET ON PROPERTY ZONED AGRICULTURAL ESTATE (A2) LOCATED AT 10 PIONEER TRAIL. APPLICANT: MATT AND SARAH CHRISTENSEN, PLANNING CASE 11-06. PUBLIC PRESENT: Name Address Matt & Sarah Christensen 10 Pioneer Trail Phil & Deb Gjervold 9381 Highview Drive, Eden Prairie Kairies: Good evening Chairman Aller, members of the Planning Commission. The application before you tonight is for 10 Pioneer Trail, Lot 3, Block 1, Lake Riley Highland Addition for an accessory structure in excess of 1,000 square feet. The subject site is located just south of Lake Riley. It’s bordered by Pioneer Trail to the south. There are other agricultural, excuse me, agricultural estate properties to the west and the east edge of the property is the border between Chanhassen Eden Prairie. The request tonight is for a 1,304 square footage variance from the 1,000 square foot detached accessory structure size limitation for the construction of a 2,304 square foot horse stable. The site conditions on the site are, again as I mentioned it’s within the shoreland district as Lake Riley is to the north of the property. There’s a wetland to the south of the property along Pioneer Trail and then there are single family residential homes in Eden Prairie. It’s accessed via private drive which serves 3 homes coming off of Pioneer Trail and staff did speak with Eden Prairie, with the City of Eden Prairie to see what their ordinances were with single family residential homes next to an agricultural estate district and they do have similar regulations as the City of Chanhassen. For some background, in May, 2007 the City Code was amended to limit accessory structures to 1,000 square feet in all residential zoning districts. The intent of this was to limit home occupations that were bring run out of large accessory structures. At the time of the amendment it was also discussed that agricultural uses that require larger buildings would be a reasonable request for a variance from the 1,000 square feet. Chapter 5 of the Chanhassen City Code does address private stables and horses within the city and the number of horses is based on the area or the number of acres for the site. This site is over 6 acres, therefore it could have up to 16 horses on this property. As part of that it requires Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 that the shelter provide adequate protection and space for animals. It does require that the barn is at least 100 feet from any neighboring dwelling. That includes the neighbors in Eden Prairie. And 200 feet from any wetland and it also requires a perimeter fence around the property. And here’s just, if you can see the white stakes which is they staked where the barn is to go in. This is looking from their driveway towards Eden Prairie, towards the neighbors. Just to give you an idea of where it will be located on the site. The proposed stable is, the actual barn portion of it is 48 feet by 36 feet and then attached to that would be a 12 foot by 48 foot awning that would protect the animals when they’re outside. After speaking with the City Attorney we decided that we would combine both the open area and the enclosed area as part of the variance for the overall request. For the interior layout the common size, as recommended by the equestrian experts is a 12 foot by 12 foot stall or a tack room with a 12 foot center island, or center aisle, excuse me. And then the applicant proposes to house approximately 4 horses, tack, feed and then hay and other related equipment. This is a practical difficulty to exceed 1,000 square feet because it is directly related to the horses and the requirements as outlined in Chapter 5 of the Chanhassen City Code. And I should also mention that the stable will meet all required setbacks as outlined in the city code as well. With that staff is recommending approval of the applicant’s request and I’ll take any questions at this time. Aller: It will then meet the 100 feet behind the dwelling requirement. Kairies: Correct. Aller: And it meets the 200 feet from the watershed of wetland. Kairies: Correct. Aller: And then the perimeter fence. In reading this it looks like it’s not quite on the edge of the property, is that? Kairies: Right. The perimeter fence is approximately 9 inches inside the property. City code requires 1 inch within, however the applicant’s placing it further in to make sure that the horses remain on their property and don’t lean over to the other property. Aller: And then in looking at this it looks like the shed is capable of holding 4, or 6 horses and their intent is for 4? Kairies: At this time as a part of the application the intent was for 4 but it could house up to 6. Aller: But the code allows them to have 16 based on square footage. Kairies: Correct. Aller: I have no further questions. Anyone else? Undestad: I just have one with the wetland down there, are there any issues? Is that fenced off from the horses or are… 2 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Kairies: The applicant could answer that. Matt Christensen: I’m Matt Christensen. This is my wife Sarah. We’re the applicants and the owners of the land. We actually have permitted and, for the better part completed the perimeter fencing with the exception of the west edge where the barn will eventually go because we didn’t want to put it in the wrong place and end up having to move it or whatever. And it does go up the wetland a fairly considerable distance. We permitted away from the wetlands even though the fencing could go down maybe even closer but we wanted to get a good buffer area there and keep it real natural for the health of the wetlands. Sarah Christensen: And we did talk to Terry about where he would recommend that it should go in order to maintain healthy, I mean we want that part to do well too so. Aller: Okay. Anyone else? Ellsworth: Yes Mr. Chair, thank you. Angie, when I started reading this it looked like there was kind of a conflict with the number of horses that are allowed and then the size of the building that was constricted and then I got to the part where there was a presumption about a variance would be allowed for agricultural use. Is that just institutional knowledge or is that invented somewhere in a code or you know how does that come up? You showed it to us and told us but if we just looked purely at, and I didn’t go back and read the code but we look purely at that, would that jump out at us or? Kairies: It’s part of the staff report from when the code was amended for the 1,000 square foot limitation so that was the intent of it. Aanenson: I could address a little bit further planning commissioners. At the time that we drafted the requirement restricting the accessory structures we had some larger lots in the city. As the city has moved from agrarian to more suburban, those tend to be conflict areas where people have large structures that they’re actually running businesses out of, so the question came up when we put the ordinance in place to restrict that. If it’s an agricultural use, we look at it a case by case basis because, just because you’re on agriculture doesn’t mean you’re using it for agricultural purposes so what we said in the staff report is that we look at those on a case by case basis because sometimes agricultural land, people tend, or may want to be running a different type of a business out of the barn so in this case you have the opportunity to actually look at what the intent is for, clearly this intent is for the agricultural purpose of horses. We did put in the staff report kind of another discussion point that wasn’t really addressed and you know we talked about what if it went from horses and someone decided to run maybe a small minor goat and dairy kind of operation out of it so just something that you may want to talk about in your conditions of approval as far as what the expectation would be from the neighbors. That they’re expecting that it be a 4 horse property which may have a different type of nuisance than someone else keeping maybe sheep or something like that so again the intent is just to disclose to the neighbors what their expectations would be for the property. Ellsworth: Okay, thank you. 3 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Aller: I guess I would have a question for the applicants then. In the report it indicates that additionally staff has added conditions that the structure not be used as a dwelling in the future at any time. Is that your understanding as well? That it would not be. Matt Christensen: Yep… Aller: Just so everybody’s clear on that. Aanenson: Can I just add one other point of clarification too that did get brought up but just in case, because it’s for their purposes, if they were to actually take in boarder horses then kind of maybe operating as something else, that also would require a different permit to come back before you to look at that and just so everybody’s on notice on that too so if they’re using it for their purposes and not boarding horses, that’s fine. But if they were to maybe take in some additional and do riding, that would require them to come back and ask for permission on that too. Aller: Any further questions? Tennyson: I do have one question then. So is there any commercial purpose to this stable and horses? Matt Christensen: No. Sarah Christensen: We just want our girls to grow up around animals. That’s what we grew up with and that’s why we bought the property. Tennyson: Thank you. Doll: One question Angie. Did the, what is the Eden Prairie property, it says residential and it’s not in agricultural. They don’t have horses there? Kairies: They do not. It’s an agriculturally zoned district but in talking to one of the city planners at the City of Eden Prairie, they said if, within the city of Eden Prairie residential next to agricultural would have similar, they would be allowed to have horses and do agricultural type activities neighboring residential as well. Doll: Then what kind of feedback did you have from any letters that went out to anybody? Kairies: Mainly just asking what we were doing. Making sure that we weren’t subdividing property essentially and once we explained that it was for a stable for private use, everyone was okay with it. Doll: Okay. And is there, you know there’s setbacks but how do the horses are large and what comes out of horses is kind of large, how do we take care of that and protect the wetland and the lake? 4 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Kairies: Right. Within the city code there are regulations for collecting manure and making sure that the area is kept clean and things like that. Doll: And how is that enforced? I mean. Aanenson: Can I just elaborate on that if I may Chairman and members of the Planning Commission. Doll: Please. Aanenson: A private stable license is required and those are inspected. We have someone that’s qualified on the city staff to actually go in and inspect those, so they check that to make sure if their flies become a nuisance or anything like that, manure, any other nuisance then those are inspected annually, and any complaints would be followed up by the City on that too and that’s part of the first condition which is the stable permit so those are inspected annually. Doll: Okay. Ellsworth: I have no further questions. Aller: Thank you. Anyone else from the public, opening the public portion of the hearing. Would like to come forward. No one coming forward I’m going to close the public hearing. Comments from commissioners. Comments? Motion from the commissioners. Undestad: I’ll make a motion that the Chanhassen Planning Commission as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves Planning Case 2011-06 for accessory structure area variance subject to conditions of the staff report and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Decision. Ellsworth: Second. Aller: I have a motion and a second. Undestad moved, Ellsworth seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments, approves Planning Case #2011-06 for a 1,304 square- foot variance from the maximum 1,000 square-foot detached accessory structure for the construction of a 2,304 square-foot stable on Lot 3, Block 1, Lake Riley Highlands Addition, based on adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and Decision, subject to the following conditions: 1.The private stable must meet all setback requirements. 2.Building permit required. 3.Structure must comply with Minnesota State Building Code. 5 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 4.The applicant must obtain a stable permit. 5.The accessory structure may not be used as a separate dwelling unit. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: BURROUGHS VARIANCE: REQUEST FOR VARIANCE TO BUILD A SPORT COURT ON PROPERTY ZONED SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RSF) LOCATED AT 10036 TRAILS END ROAD. APPLICANT: JOSH KOLLER, SOUTHVIEW DESIGN. OWNER: STACEY & PHIL BURROUGHS, PLANNING CASE 2011-07. Public Present: Name Address Kevin Zwart 1301 E. Cliff Road, Burnsville Craig Jones 1301 E. Cliff Road, Burnsville Josh Koller 1027 Northview Park Road, Eagan Phil Burroughs 10036 Trails End Road Kairies: Chairman Aller, members of the Planning Commission. The application before you tonight is for 10036 Trails End Road, Lot 15, Block 1, Settlers West. Property zoned Single Family Residential. The applicant is requesting, back one more time. Excuse me. It’s located south of Pioneer Trail. To the west of the property is the Hennepin County Regional Railroad. To the south of the property, south end of the entire development is basically bluff area and then to the east is also Eden Prairie towards the north part of the subdivision. The applicant is requesting a 4.3% or 681 square foot variance from the 25% maximum hard surface coverage limitation within the residential single family district for the construction of a sport court in the rear yard. The Settlers West subdivision was platted in 2005 and as part of platting the subdivision there was several environmental considerations that took place. For instance there are bluffs which are all outlined in red so the majority of the southern half of Settlers West. There’s a seasonally high water table within the development. There are several tree preservation areas and outlots to protect the natural features. The development is made up primarily of clay soils. As also part of the development to control some of the storm water runoff, there were reverse swales that were put in on the southern part of the development to ensure that water does not go down the bluff and cause erosion problems. And then again on the west side there were storm water pipes that were put into the rear yards in drainage and utility easements to control where runoff is being distributed so that it’s not causing erosion in the bluff and then on the regional railway. And all of the runoff does go into the Minnesota River which is an impaired water. The subject site came in for a building permit in 2006 and at that time the hard surface coverage was at 24.7% and again 25% is the maximum. The property included the house, garage, driveway, sidewalk from the front door to the driveway and also 180 square foot patio. Prior to tonight’s meeting the applicant did come in and request a zoning permit to install patios and stepping stones which brought the property to 25% exactly, and then today they’re requesting to install a 681 square foot sport court which would bring them to 29.3%. The 6 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 applicant did submit sport court designs to show that it was a pervious system and after Terry reviewed the design, the sport court base which is the top layer is pervious. However as part of the installation that was shown to us, the sub-base and the surface, sub-surface were compacted and therefore are impervious. Again there’s a seasonally high water table which makes it difficult in this area to create more storm water runoff. And furthermore city code does not recognize this material as an approved impervious surface. Excuse me as an approved pervious surface. Therefore administratively we cannot recommend approval of such a material. Staff is recommending, the applicant does have reasonable use of the property in that they have a single family home and a 2 car garage on the lot currently and with that staff is recommending denial of the application and I’ll take any questions at this time. Aller: Is it a 3 car garage or a 2 car garage? Kairies: Three car garage. Two cars the minimum but they have a 3 car. Aller: Any questions? Commissioner Ellsworth? Ellsworth: No. Aller: Commissioner Doll? Doll: No, I don’t. Aller: Kathleen. Thomas: I don’t think so. Aller: Commissioner Hokkanen. Hokkanen: Not yet. Aller: Commissioners. Undestad: No questions. Aller: Great report. Kairies: Thank you. Aller: Do we have anyone, an applicant that wants to come forward and make a presentation? Phil Burroughs: Yeah. Aller: Great. If you can please state your name and address for the record. Phil Burroughs: Yep. I’m Phil Burroughs. I’m the property owner. 7 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Aller: Mr. Burroughs, thank you. Phil Burroughs: Thank you. So I just, I prepared a few comments and then, which I will read and hand it over to my contractor who had a few things he wanted to demonstrate. Aller: Great, thank you. Phil Burroughs: So members of the commission, my name’s Phil Burroughs and I and my wife Stacey are the owners of the property at 10036 Trails End which is the subject obviously of the variance request you’re asked to consider today. I have Josh Koller with me of Southview Designs who’s my contractor, and a couple gentlemen from the Sport Court organization to you know represent the surface that’s kind of in dispute here. So you know I think, a couple things I’ll emphasize in the abstract before I get to the actual points that I want to make here. You know we absolutely wanted to create a yard that would enhance the visual appeal of the neighborhood, provide outdoor space for playing activities, you know all while preserving the environment and the natural beauty of the community. You know we clearly sought to comply with all codes and regulations provided by the City that every aspect of our proposed development approved by the City. I’m sure you’re well aware that there’s, you walked through and I think demonstrated well kind of the reasons behind the code and you know we understood that in order to accomplish compliance that we needed to come up with a solution that was, that would provide for the right level of drainage and at the level of perviousness necessary, if that’s even a word. Perviousness. You know to be in compliance so we chose the sport court solution that we’re asking you to review today as we believe that we’ve demonstrated that it’s unique design renders the surface permeable. Thereby excluding it from hardscape regulations so I’ll let the guys provide some of the technical expertise but I wanted to make it clear that I strongly contend to follow you. One of the basis for the argument by the staff members against our request is that the solution is not water permeable. Their support for this position the staff references the installation instructions for the sport base solution, emphasizing the guidance in those instructions that the installer compact the soil. The solution we’ve advanced does not call for compacting the underlying soil. In fact we plan to use a pervious sand sub-base which is water permeable at a much faster rate than the native clay soil or any other landscaping or non- hardscaping solution. This solution description you know was provided as part of our proposal and the only thing that frankly puzzled me as I read through the packet was that that did not appear to have been considered in the recommendations that were advanced. I believe we’re dealing with a circular argument. We have a water pervious surface. Placed on a pervious sub- base. A sub-base that would meet code for landscaping or lawn design but we’re told that despite providing evidence to the contrary we’re proposing a solution that will behave like hardscape and against the spirit of the regulation. And just one other thing to comment on from the written materials. This, you know the package submits that the solution we propose is again counter to the spirit of the statute as it has aesthetic implications that accompany the loss of green space. You know I guess I would submit that that last argument is specious particularly when you consider the care we’ve taken to design you know a beautiful solution that will provide a beauty to the neighborhood for years to come. And finally I wanted to say I appreciate the service you guys all provide in coming here on a nice, lovely July night and I thank you in advance for considering our cause for a variance. 8 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Aller: Thank you Mr. Burroughs. Josh Koller: Hi. Josh Koller. I’m with Southview Design. I’m the landscape designer on this so, and I’ve had a lot of talks with Angela over here about what we’re doing. She’s been very helpful in kind of telling us how we need to go about this. What we’re trying to do is, honestly the landscape industry we know the 25% and we’re trying to keep underneath that. That’s not what we’re trying to do but Angela explained to me that we needed to apply for a variance first so that we can present what we’re trying to install and get it considered you know a permeable surface. Now I don’t know, can you go back to that slide that shows all the layers of the, I don’t know if it’d be possible to do that or not. There you go. So in this slide here it shows the sub- base and everything that we’re trying to do that and that’s what we’re kind of claiming that it’s not, you know water will not be able to penetrate that. However as a solution to that with the sport court piece we’re eliminating that. What we’re doing is we’re putting a sand base underneath that and compacting this material into the sand so realistically this is going to go, water’s going to penetrate this a lot better than the clay soil plug that I pulled out of their yard. And I brought these gentlemen from Sport Court to kind of explain that if you guys don’t mind taking a look at it and seeing how it works and going from there. Aller: Thank you. Kevin Zwart: Kevin Zwart with Sport Court Minneapolis. I think when people hear the word sport court they automatically think concrete, asphalt, those things and we’re kind of known for this. Nice colorful surface that everyone sees us out there for. I mean Craig Jones here has been in the Twin Cities area for 25 years you know with the company Sport Court building these projects and what we found across the country, or the nation, the Chicago’s and some of those areas, is these impervious structure ordinances are coming down very, very tight. We haven’t seen it a whole lot until the last 4 or 5 years locally so what Sport Court corporate office did is come out with a product called Sport Base and that would be the base underneath the green tile here that is basically once again an interlocking puzzle with holes in it. I don’t know if you guys have all the paperwork. I know Angie does with all the filtration studies that are out there that just like Josh said, you know if that lot that you say is primarily clay or 40% clay soils, and you get a heavy, heavy rain, we know a lot of that water ends up in the road. You know runoff. Now what we’re proposing to do, we just finished one in Burnsville and said we were too close to Crystal Lake down there so we couldn’t do any hard cover. So we went in, excavated out that clay. Those hard soils and then we put down a bed of 8 inches of sand. Then the sport base product and then of course the sport court tile over the top of it. So in turn what we’ve done is we’ve kind of not funneled but any of that rain water that’s going to fall within that 649 square feet, we’re slowing that down. Now it’s going to have the time to naturally you know filtrate into the soils versus everything else around it we know runs right off of clay. So we’re actually slowing down runoff in that area and I think where some confusion is taking place is in our sales brochure and some of those things where it does say compacted base, and a lot of people think of that right away as Class V, which over time gets as hard as concrete and doesn’t drain either you know so we are going in with an 8 inch base of sand. And that’s what I kind of have to just combat what’s kind of been shown here. 9 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Aller: Is the sand sitting on top of clay? Or is there. Craig Jones: On top of the natural soil. Kevin Zwart: Natural soils. We would dig out 8 inches. Bring in 8 inches of sand. Aller: And there’s nothing underneath funneling or channeling the water away? It’s just natural soils. Craig Jones: None whatsoever. It came with a panel around the outside. Kevin Zwart: We use paver edging. Aller: But you’re not taking the water away with any kind of pump system or drainage system? Craig Jones: No, nothing whatsoever. Kevin Zwart: No. Craig Jones: It’s going to be better for drainage. It’s not going to be as good for the house. I mean you’re letting water percolate into the water table but as far as overflow into you know just natural runoff, we’re trying to slow that down so. The biggest piece, and I think Angie can answer this one from the conversations we’ve had is just the base material. So when we talked Class V and packing it and those type of things then she’s right. I mean that is going to stop it. I mean permeable pavers, you guys don’t accept that here in Chanhassen because of the base materials and eventually it gets clogged up and those types of things. This is totally different. We’re just putting a sand base in to allow for that water. I mean it’s, obviously it’s going to drain a lot better than what the clay will, you know than just what the natural clay would do. Kevin Zwart: And you guys don’t count decks in Chanhassen, correct? A wood deck or a synthetic board deck. Kairies: Standard deck we exclude from hard cover. Kevin Zwart: Standard deck, okay. So this I like to, you know it’s really a sport deck. I mean is it any different than someone who had a deck off their house and below it they had a sand box for their kids to play in you know? That’s really what we have. Aller: So the request is that we exclude this from calculation. Kevin Zwart: Yeah, I think the hard cover you’d be adding to this would really be a 2 foot by 2 foot footing that the basketball hoop would set in, which would be a concrete footing. Craig Jones: And that’s what we were told to do. We were told to present this and we’re actually trying to get it to not count against the hard cover as the point of the presentation. 10 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Aller: Has there been any indication of what the impact this slowing actually would be. I mean we’re butting up against, it’d be one thing just saying in general that it’s going to be better than concrete or better than asphalt clearly, but what happens that water, we’re still sitting in the center of this property and it still has a long way to go and it’s going to end up in the bluff. So is, what’s the impact on the actual drainage? Craig Jones: What we’re actually trying to do is just like if we do a French drainage system in somebody’s house where we dig up like almost like a sump well and then we fill that with rock. What we’re trying to do is when water fills that up, if we get the 100 year flood, which it seems like we’ve had 4 or 5 of those this year, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get all the water to go to that so that it’s able to fill that area up and then slowly percolate down into the water table and that’s what we’re trying to do with that. We’re not trying to get it to run off the surface. Same thing with this. I mean this will allow for water to gather into the sport court and slowly percolate where it’s not, instead of just having a runoff like a clay. I mean essentially what we’re trying to do with the hard cover is we’re trying to stop runoff from going into you know whatever the water areas, the caver, into the bluffs or into the street. If anything without the sub-base, without doing the Class V basing and those types of things, this is going to help that system. It’s not going to hurt it. So we’re trying to let it percolate into the water table better, especially with a sand base is what we’re trying to do. Thomas: Am I correct that you’re around the blocks that are the jigsaw puzzles, for lack of a better term. Are you building like a, not a dam but are you kind of boxing it in? Craig Jones: It’s put on like around paver patios. Thomas: Okay. Craig Jones: There’s an edging that’s actually staked into the ground to hold these from shifting back and forth of course and that actually is at the same height as this. Thomas: As that. Craig Jones: And so that has that ability to stop that water that’s. Thomas: That was my other question is how would that, all I could see is like I would imagine it would just run right off. You know how it would percolate but, so it’s got edging around it. Craig Jones: Right. Thomas: Okay. Hokkanen: Is there, based on the picture, are there only 8 holes in each? Kevin Zwart: Yeah it goes through actually all of the sub-bases. They did a study on this where they actually drilled holes in every piece. 11 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Hokkanen: Okay. Craig Jones: Instead of having just the holes on the sides and then when it connects together, because these don’t connect solidly. They just loosely fit. Hokkanen: Okay, I can see that now. Craig Jones: And the study actually showed that water percolated just as much in the filtration system I’ve got here than if you drill a hole in each one, which certainly, I mean if a guy needed to do that, you know we could punch holes in every square of this if you wanted to. But it’s not needed. Kevin Zwart: Yeah you can see by the infiltration gridding of the, if you can read those studies which I have difficult times with. In essence what it’s saying is that it’s allowing you know more than 100 year flood to penetrate through this pretty easily and rapidly. Much faster than it would with clay so we’re creating that ability for it to absorb that and slowly release it into the clay. Aanenson: Chairman if I may, before we cut out. I just kind of want to reframe why we’re at this point. This is the first variance tonight in that you’ve seen in over a year because of the State Supreme Court and now we’ve passed new variance criteria. They’ve asked for hard surface coverage variance. We historically have not approved hard surface variances. They’re asking for an interpretation of our previous recommendation so I want to make sure that you understand that’s kind of what, why they’re bringing this and demonstrating this for you is that they’re disagreeing with our interpretation, which is a right as part of the appeal process, that they’re aggrieved of a decision of an administrative officer so our interpretation is that it doesn’t meet that criteria so that’s, I just want to make sure that we kind of frame the discussion there on that point. Doll: That’s Terry’s opinion, Terry and the public works and the engineering department? Aanenson: Yeah, I’ll let Terry speak to that. Jeffery: Chair Aller, Commissioner Doll, yeah. That is in fact correct. While I do not dispute the hydraulic conductivity of the sport base itself. In fact the University of Utah State University study does show that it has K value much higher than your different soil materials. However that same study then goes on to…underlying sub-grade material which is the…and while there will be a sand base in there which will have the hydraulic conductivity of sand, below that will still be, and that’s I guess where I’m still contending it is, the sub-grade will still need to be compacted. You will still need a level surface. You can’t just lay it there. But even beyond that, we don’t have engineering to say that there would even be adequate storage within that sport court area to accommodate what’s there. My contention is that yes, this, in the past we have not allowed for these type of materials and I don’t feel that this is the time to do so. Kevin Zwart: If I may just add on that real quick. I do have to, I think a little bit of that though again is based on the base material. All we’re going to do is dig down and grade a level spot. 12 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 We are not going to run a compactor on the base. However, if a person has a family or kids and they’re running around in their yard with a clay yard, that’s going to get compacted more than what this is going to be. I’m not running a compactor over this. We’re running 8 inches of sand, and I think that’s where you’re talking about, if I’m correct that you’re saying you’re doing to sub cut down and then you’re going to put some type of base or compact it or whatever, which is actually what we’re not, we’re not doing that. We’re just grading. We’re cutting it down. We’re bringing in our sand and then we’re putting this directly over the top of it. The only time I’m going to compact anything is I’m just going to compact this material into the sand itself. Not into the clay base or anything like that, so those pictures that we showed as far as how it gets compacted, we’re not doing that based on the City’s recommendation that, and that’s what we were told is to come in here and talk about that. That’s what we’re not doing so that we can allow for that penetration. I was told that this was the first time that this product has ever come up to the City of Chanhassen so about the knowledge of what it is, is that correct Angie? I think that’s what you had said. Aanenson: I don’t believe that’s, I don’t think that’s a, I think we’ve pretty much seen every iteration of hard surface coverage from permeable pavers to pervious asphalt. Kevin Zwart: Yes. Yeah, I’m talking about this. I’m sorry. Aanenson: Yeah, no. Yeah, right. And we have denied other sport courts in the past, and I’m not you know, so again you have the right to make your appeal and so. Aller: And I just have some other quick questions that are on a little bit different vein here and that would be, the first permit that was taken out here with the Burroughs, the owners, builders or did they purchase the property after built or? Phil Burroughs: I’m sorry. Aller: Did you build the property? The home? Phil Burroughs: …built the property. They pulled the permit. Built it as a spec home. Aller: It was a spec home for you? And then there was a second time that a variance was requested for additional work? Kairies: No. They requested a zoning permit to install patios and some stone steppers and at that time we also calculate the hard surface coverage. The purpose of the zoning permit is for the hard cover essentially. Aller: Right. Kairies: To make sure that we’re not exceeding the 25%. Aller: So that zoning, and that zoning permit brought it to 25%. 13 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Phil Burroughs: I mean it was two steps that, so we submitted for the kind of the landscaping and the patio and then submitted. Aanenson: If you don’t mind, they’re trying to record it so if you can just step up to the microphone, so they can get you on tape. Aller: Thank you Mr. Burroughs. Phil Burroughs: I’ll let the… Josh Koller: Yeah we, the landscaping permit we pulled was yeah, just basically for the existing concrete patio actually exceeded a little bit so we actually were tearing the existing patio out. Redoing it so that it would fit the 25% and then we’re applying to put the sport court in, and again basically put a sand box in with a tile over top of it. Undestad: Can you just, you were saying you’re going to compact something into the sand. Is it just the green surface or the black, the tiles? Kevin Zwart: What we actually do is once we lay that sand down, level that out and put a…board across it, then we lay this on top of it and then we run our compactor over the top of this just to seed it into that sand. Undestad: So you compact that and that compacts down into the sand and. Kevin Zwart: Right. You’ve got to remember sand will compact but always returns to it’s original state. All we’re trying to do is get this level. Undestad: Until it gets wet and then it all just goes down… Kevin Zwart: Well sand has that unusual ability of absorbing a great deal more moisture and will compact but always returns to it’s original state. Clay doesn’t do that. Josh Koller: And this is a lot different than permeable pavers. I mean I install permeable pavers all the time and I know the City of Chanhassen doesn’t accept them because they you know, for the base, basically because of the basing and like again, we’re just eliminating that. We’re just basically putting a deck on sand is what we’re trying to do. Ellsworth: Mr. Chair? Aller: Commissioner. Ellsworth: Which is more pervious, a lawn with some black dirt and the roots of the grass or clay that’s just scraped clear down a foot and just left? Jeffery: Chair Aller, Commissioner Ellsworth. Biofiltration features work specifically because the soil has been augmented and their plants roots within it. That’s what allows for the porosity 14 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 down below so all else being equal that material which has plant growth within it is going to be more pervious. Ellsworth: Okay. And then for this sport court, that soil would be removed and it would just be clay exposed with sand on top of it. Jeffery: That is my understanding. Ellsworth: Okay. So I don’t live very far from there and I know the clay soils in that area and it is like concrete. Not this year but on other years when it’s drier. It’s muck right now. That’s the only question. Thank you Terry. Aller: And I just want to make the record clear, you indicated that it would not be clay? Josh Koller: No, I mean there’s clay. I pulled the plug on this property to find what the soils are. I mean we’d have to go down a long ways to not get to clay. Aller: Okay. Josh Koller: But to go back to the question about sod, a sod system, sod has a vertical root system so even sod where it has 3 inches of soil on top of it, and especially on this site and 90% of homes that are just builder done where they don’t bring in a lot of black dirt, the sod’s laid on this property directly on clay. So the filtration from the sod and the little bit of black dirt, absolutely. That will allow for more filtration going to it. On the clay base of it, it’s no different than what we’re going to have here because that root system of that sod can’t penetrate on heavy clay like that anyway. So it’s spreading, that’s why when you have, and we run into this in the landscape industry a lot so we try on a new home to bring in at least 6 to 8 inches of black dirt because then your grass, the root system can go deeper. You don’t have to water as much. The problem is with a lot of clay, when they put sod right on top of clay, that’s why you see homeowners watering every other day where actually on a good yard you should only have to water your yard once every 5 days. Aller: But I think that gets to Commissioner Ellsworth’s question and the point he was making was that the grass in that sod helps draw that water out. It’s being utilized, it’s growing. Grass is growing and so the filtration is actually there whereas a sport court or any other impervious surface, once it hits the clay it’s. Josh Koller: If you don’t mind let me go back to that. Would you say, Terry? I think it’s Terry. Would you say that that, for sod because this house has maybe 3 inches of black dirt and then it’s clay directly underneath it. Would you say that that soil is going to penetrate that 3 inches of the sod with the black dirt and then go into the clay faster than it’s going to penetrate 8 inches of sand and then go into the clay because you’re only talking, you’re talking 3 inches of black dirt with sod and then it’s still hard clay and you’re talking 8 inches of sand and then it’s hard clay so just ask you the question. I mean realistically it’s not going to. 15 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Jeffery: Chairman Aller. If you’re asking, the hydraulic conductivity of the clay will remain the same. Josh Koller: Yep. Jeffery: Irrespective of what is above it. Josh Koller: Yep. Jeffery: Utilization by the vegetation that’s there will be greater. Therefore the total volume of runoff will be less. Undestad: And don’t we really have more than just 8 inches of sand? It’s got to get through that stuff too? Josh Koller: Yeah but this is what any stuff the case study showed. This does go through faster than your, than...then even with sod on top of that. Doll: Does the surrounding, there should be a site plan, is the surrounding vegetation aid in this? Jeffery: Chairman Aller, Commissioner Doll. One of the things that we’re running into, let’s throw everything else aside. Let’s say we got to some presupposition where this would be a beneficial circumstance. Throwing all of that aside we still would require with anything like this, any solution we’re going to have that’s going to affect our hydraulics and our hydrology within the city and our storm water conveyance system, we’re going to require engineering on it. Beyond that we’re going to require some type of long term maintenance. How are we going to ensure that these practices exist and still function as designed into the future? I, well actually I cannot answer how it will react with what is around it. For starters I don’t know what the total storage even would be within that. I don’t know then what the hydraulic pad would be within that. I don’t know what the conductivity of the clay below it’s going to be. All I know is we have a design where we’re going to make some type of sub-cut. 4 to 8 inches to this but apparently this is not what I should be using. And then below that will be the inserted materials which will not be compacted intentionally. However over time obviously if we’re going to have like surcharging a road. I mean if we’re putting materials over it we are by it’s definition. Ultimately what it boils down to is we don’t have a vehicle by which we can say that this material would provide the benefit we are looking for. It is a constant discussion at staff level and it is something that we would like to have a great solution that we could come before you and not give you these hard decisions to make but at this time there are too many questions that remain unanswered. Aller: Any other questions? Thank you. Anyone else from the public who would like to speak on the matter? Okay, we’ll close the public hearing. Comments from commissioners. Undestad: You know what, I mean just the questions that are there it’s, you know and we kind of go to Terry. I mean he’s our water resources guy and he’s got questions. I don’t understand this stuff myself either but if he doesn’t understand it and you know we need more information 16 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 as to will this really work. All I see is somebody creates a clay hole you know 8 inches deep with sand and the sport court and it fills with water and maybe they can’t even use it while it’s full of water for a while until it goes in but I guess just the fact that there’s still just too many unknowns on the technical side of things, which is really what we need to know before it all goes downstream with everything else. Aller: Okay, anyone else? Comments. Ellsworth: Ah Mr. Chair, a few comments. And one of them’s a question I guess maybe for staff. It says in the report that it’s not an allowable pervious surface through the city code. How does one petition or change the city code or have it at least considered this type of material being allowed? And so if indeed tonight we deny this, how would the applicant perhaps go through it that way and then get the proper analysis, the proper maintenance that Terry’s talking about and have that addressed and so then it’s in the code and then it would come to us and we’d say well it’s in the code and we would approve it. Aanenson: Sure. I can take that. Members of the Planning Commission. Anybody can request a code amendment but to do the code amendment, as a staff we would actually do the research and design. Kind of come back with you, to you with what we believe is the correct engineering to support what systems and that’s been an ongoing process. The State’s undergoing that right now looking at some different mid’s. Some for those issues and that’s something that we’ll be talking about this fall too. You know it’s kind of that struggle because once you make a code amendment it’s not just for this site, and certainly we want, you know property owners to enjoy their beautiful property but it affects every other property owner that would want to do the same sort of thing and that’s kind of the issue with this. It’s, where else would it be applied and so looking at the measure, we want to make sure that we studied it. Look to the engineering on that so, but someone could apply for a variance but really you’re kind of getting back to the same issue again. Kind of a disagreement with our interpretation of what’s impervious. Why they’re demonstrating to you what they believe how that product works and then I guess the question is, is do we have the right engineering to make that decision? Do you feel comfortable with that? That there’s enough engineering done on how it’s going to work. That’s really what it comes down to. Whether it’s a code amendment or this variance application. Aller: Thank you. Ellsworth: Well then additionally the, I guess my intuition says I agree with Terry and what Mark said that, and having experience with that soil at my own home and yeah as soon as you dig a hole, when we first did our percolation test for the septic system and dug a hole and put a tube in it and it filled up with water so obviously we had to do something different. And then we take water pretty seriously around here and clearly as stated in the report it’s not in the code. It was never approved as a pervious surface and then I think it does, I agree it does not meet the practical difficulty test for the variance that’s needed and that would be my recommendation. Thank you Mr. Chair. Aller: Anybody else? Commissioner Doll. 17 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Doll: Appreciate all the work that Mr. Burroughs has done on this. I mean it’s really gone far above, just looks like unless the code is changed it just doesn’t meet it. I’m for this thing. I mean in theory. I think sport court brings a family together. It brings kids in the neighborhood. It’s a good thing. Just the way the thing’s written, I don’t know. I wish we could figure out, I mean is there a way for the, to have an engineering study done. Aanenson: Yeah certainly and that’s something that we’re kind of talking about. We’re kind of writing notes here. You know obviously if this gets appealed up to the City Council between now and then, if some additional engineering can be provided. Some additional things that we could look at, that might be something on this project that we could consider. Aller: The reason I ask the questions, were to the practical hardships and whether or not there was one here when you have a homeowner that builds the property and it’s kind of like you selected a property with a 3 car garage instead of a 2 car garage. You could have used the same space to have a sport court originally and so you know those types of issues with the way variances are supposed to be applied I think practical difficulties are going to be the major issue here, not just the exemption. So on that basis I think the better solution here would be to go ahead and deny it and if the applicant chooses to appeal it, then take it up and have the appropriate engineering studies done. They still have to face I think the practical difficulty situation. Phil Burroughs: May I ask a question on that Mr. Chairman? Aller: Sure. Phil Burroughs: I don’t know what that means so maybe you can help interpret that for me. The practical difficulty. Aller: Well practical difficulty usually when you’re looking, the way I’m looking at it is, it’s whether or not this problem is of your own making. Is it something that’s so unique to the property that it’s a difficulty that is there that we have to deal with. Here we have a property that was built and it’s a great home and it’s using the maximum hard space available to it and the fact that it doesn’t have a sport court isn’t necessarily a difficulty to it being used in a reasonable fashion. That being a very nice home. Phil Burroughs: You haven’t met my children. Aller: And Chanhassen takes that kind of thing into consideration when the zoning requires that we have parks within a half mile of all these projects and we try to make sure that there are places for the kids to go and my neighbors hoops that are in their driveways where they just throw the, they use the driveway as their court so when we look at that for practical difficulties as opposed to. Phil Burroughs: Yeah, we have a slope problem on the driveway. Aller: It’s the difference between me driving a Mercedes and what I drive. 18 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Phil Burroughs: Yeah, I understand and I guess I would just be before you and take your vote and close out on it. I mean I really respect the research that was done by everybody. I think your comments on the engineering are, I understand them. I think it’s good to hear you articulate them. I would also be looking for more empirical evidence before I felt comfortable with the proposed solution so I think we’ll huddle up and figure out kind of what’s next and obviously we want to do it right. Aller: And we appreciate the fact that you’ve come in and you make application rather than having it go the other way around where some enforcement, someone knocks on your door so we really appreciate that. Phil Burroughs: Absolutely. Aller: And raising the issue is going to raise it for everyone. Thomas: Yeah, you’ll be a hero. Undestad: Get all the questions answered, we’d love to find something that would solve a lot of these. Aller: But I think the best way to position that for you is to go ahead and deny it and allow it to escalate, if you will, to a position where someone else can make that decision. Phil Burroughs: Understood. Kevin Zwart: Can I ask a quick question? Aller: Sure. Kevin Zwart: Just on the engineering side factor of it. If we could get some sort of guideline… Aller: Okay, go ahead and step up to the podium. Kevin Zwart: If there’s some way that we can get some sort of guideline of what exactly you want to see and what tests so we can implement that, that would be most beneficial for us so that we answer your questions and get the data that you’re looking for. Aller: Well I don’t know whether or not that’s something we’re here today to discuss. Kevin Zwart: No, I’m directing it to him to say you know if I could have that opportunity to have a discussion with him. Aller: We’re going to need to vote on that and I’m sure the City’s more than happy to work with you any day of the week. I think they have been and will continue to so we appreciate your time. Thank you. Do we have a motion? 19 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Thomas: Alright I’ll propose a motion. The Chanhassen Planning Commission as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments denies Planning Case #2011-07 for hard surface coverage variance to construct a sport court and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Decision. Tennyson: Move to second it. Aller: Having a motion and a second. Thomas moved, Tennyson seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments denies Planning Case #2011-07 for hard surface coverage variance to construct a sport court and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Decision. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Aller: The variance is denied. Thank you to all present. Moving on to item 3. PUBLIC HEARING: CITY CODE AMENDMENT: CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 20, ZONING CONCERNING PAINTBALL COURSES AND SHOOTING RANGES. Generous: Thank you Chairman Aller, commissioners. As you said this is a proposed city code amendment to both Chapters 11 and 20, code amendments to address gun ranges and paintball courses within the community. Previously this item was discussed under open discussion in April and June of this year to try to lay out the issues and the problems that we foresee. What the code amendment will try to do is create an exception to the firearm prohibition in Chapter 11 to permit paintball courses and a gun ranges. Additionally we looked at creating standards for these type of facilities within the code so that we would be able to evaluate each one as they came in. And thirdly to create the district or allow them in the specific districts that we believe was appropriate. The first one I’m looking at is the indoor gun ranges. We’re looking at indoor only. At one time there was an outdoor gun range in the community. That went away and the City doesn’t want to permit it again because we are an urbanizing community and so we don’t think agriculture will stay here as long as it had in the past. We are looking at only two districts, well there’s three districts that we’re looking at. The A2 district for the outdoor paintball courses and then the IOP and CC districts for the indoor facilities. And it was fun getting these pictures of the different facilities that they have out there. I tried not to get anyone shooting because it made people upset. This map represents areas in the community that we are potentially looking at permitting or allowing this type of use. All the green areas are industrial sites within the community. This would be both for the indoor gun range and also for indoor paintball courses. The proposed amendment dealing with the gun range would add conditional use permit standards for the gun ranges in the business districts. The issues, and those show up on pages 6 and 7 of the staff report. What we tried to deal with were the safety issues. The design of the facility. The operation of the facility. How people use their guns. Secondly we were looking at nuisance issues in creating these standards and finally we wanted to make sure that any operator had the sufficient liability insurance. We didn’t want to get too specific in all the requirements but a general guideline for them to use and these businesses will know better than the City what they need to do to make themselves safe and profitable so. We are, as I state, we’re recommending 20 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 that indoor gun ranges be a permitted use in industrial office, or a conditional use in the industrial office park districts and that it be a conditional use as an accessory use to a sporting goods store in the community commercial district. Our concern in the community commercial is this is theoretically if you have a downtown area and we didn’t want a 65,000 square foot gun range. We’d rather have the retail opportunity with this as an accessory component of that. So that’s the way the amendments were structured. Now for paintball courses we’re looking at both outdoor facilities and indoor facilities. The outdoor, let’s see. Again we would develop standards as part of the conditional use permit but these would, there’d be two of them. One set of standards would be for the agricultural residential district and the other ones would be for the commercial or business districts, and the only difference is it would only be permitted outside in the A2 district. In the commercial industrial district it would have to be an indoor facility only. We would permit it as, we’re recommending that it be permitted as an interim use in our agricultural districts and that it be permitted as a conditional use as an indoor use in the industrial office park district. So and these are sites that meet the minimum requirements for the zoning regulations for outdoor facilities. One of the primary ones is the site has to be at least 20 acres in area and the second one is a separation requirement between any adjacent property lines for these courses. That they be at least 300 feet from the property line and that the course also be at least 500 feet from any adjacent residential properties and this we hope to avoid nuisance issues by having this separation requirement. And these standards for the CUP were located on pages 5 and 6 of the staff report. Again we have as part of that, the primary concern is safety of the people that are using the facility. Finally staff is recommending approval of the ordinances amending Chapter 11, the miscellaneous provision which would create the exception to allow paintball courses and indoor gun ranges and also to Chapter 20 to adopt the standards for the conditional uses for both and also to change the district regulations to allow them in the IOP and CC district and the outdoor courses in the A2 district. With that I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. Aller: Thank you. Questions. Aanenson: Chair, I’m just going to clarify one thing if I may. Aller: Thank you. Aanenson: I think Bob did a great job explaining that. I just want to clarify the difference between the interim use and conditional use because we haven’t done with that two. The interim use you can attach conditions that it would cease and desist. You might say if there’s a new development next to it or within so many feet so you can attach those conditions when it comes in and that was for the outdoor one so there’s a definite timeframe for those to lapse. A conditional use would run with the property. Those were the ones that were recommended for the indoor uses so those would always run with the property so that was I think when we talked about before that came up was a little bit you know how do we compare on those issues so we have had some requests for outdoor. I think the biggest change, I’m sorry I missed the first part is that you know we don’t allow any, except in the shooting areas of the city which we do have some areas that you can do hunting, we don’t allow outdoor so it’d be a little bit change of that. Obviously this would be paintball sort of thing. Splatball kind of issue but we want to make sure that we would have regulations in place and could cease and make those, you could even put in 21 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 there like so many complaints or you know violations of noise ordinance or those sort of things and you might want to rescind their rights so that gives you the flexibility on that. Aller: Has that been looked at? Generous: The interim use? Aller: That type of condition. Aanenson: Well it would be the standard when it comes before you. We would look at where it is and then we would think you know that maybe that would be something, depending on, there might be areas that wouldn’t be as big of an issue but if it’s close to something else we might say, if it’s disruptive to neighboring properties or we get so many complaints then we may want to monitor those but we would attach that when an application came in and that’s one of the standards you can under an interim use. Reasonable conditions to mitigate. Aller: Thank you. Based on that, any questions? Open the public hearing. Seeing no one coming forward, closing the public hearing. Comments. Do I have a motion? Doll: I’ll motion the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the City Council adopt attached ordinance amending Chapters 11 and 20 of the Chanhassen City Code regulating gun ranges and paintball courses. Thomas: And I second that. Doll moved, Thomas seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the attached ordinance amending Chapter 11, Miscellaneous Provisions and Offenses, and Chapter 20, Zoning of the Chanhassen City Code pertaining to gun ranges and paintball courses. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Thomas noted the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated June 21, 2011 as presented. CITY COUNCIL ACTION UPDATE. Aanenson: So the council did approve your recommendations of the erosion control and then also we obviously passed the variance criteria so we don’t anticipate, we’ve been getting a few calls but I don’t anticipate a big rush of those coming forward yet. Those two were kind of, certainly the horse stable one was kind of waiting for that issue. They had fenced and been working with us to kind of move forward with that and they bought that property clearly for the horse issue so again Angie Auseth does, excuse me, Kairies does a great job of working with our residents to try to eliminate those. And then we did approve the Boulder Cove subdivision and that one’s north of Highway 7, kind of keeping those entitlements in place. I think working with the council so someone doesn’t have to pay for engineering again to have those projects go forward. I think we also did the Powers Crossing also on that one for the extension so that’s it. 22 Chanhassen Planning Commission - July 19, 2011 Aller: Great. Aanenson: If I could just take a minute to talk about a future agenda. That’s not on here but we nd did have next Tuesday, excuse me, our next regular meeting would be Tuesday, August 2. That’s also National Night Out. We did have a request for people that would like to be in their neighborhoods so we’ve, this will be the second year now that we’ve chosen not to have a meeting so you can be at home with your neighbors on National Night Out. So having said that th we kind of are trying to get our tour in and we actually put that down for August 16 but we do have an application in and because we had, didn’t have that we are going to go ahead and have th the, you know have an application in here. So then we were looking at September 6 and I don’t know if I mentioned this or not but the Environmental Commission is going to tour with us so we’re going to look at some of these issues that may have came up tonight, some of the hard cover issues and look at some projects that are done. We’ll probably go out to the parking ramp and some of those sort of things and talk about that and have a picnic with the Environmental th Commission but because September 6 is the first day of school, it’s hard for people and so th we’re going to move that to the 20 so we’ll start early and so we’ll send you out a notice that we can start a little earlier because it gets dark and hopefully no rain and then we’ll go look at some sites and kind of educate ourselves with the Environmental Commission and then we’ll end up with a picnic dinner somewhere. Aller: Great, thank you. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Ellsworth: Can I ask a question on process and Kate, stop me if I go too far on the discussion. Back to the one we just heard about with the play court. Aller: Do you want to do that in open discussion? Ellsworth: Can we? Thomas: Yeah, offline. Aller: Let’s go ahead and adjourn and then have a work session. Anybody make a motion to adjourn? Thomas moved, Hokkanen seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 8:05 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 23