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2 Amend Section 18-37CITYOF 690 City Center Drive PO Box 147 Chanhassen, Minnesota 55317 Pholle 952.937.1900 General Fax 952.937.5739 ' Engineering Department Fax 952.937.9152 Building Department Fax 952.934.2524 Web Site www. ci. chanhassen, mn. us TO: Planning Commission FROM: Bob Generous, Senior Planner DATE: September 18, 2001 SUB J: Proposed Section 18-37 Exemption PROPOSAL SUMMARY Staff is recommending that the subdivision ordinance be amended to require that administrative subdivisions be recorded in a timely manner. While the city would be assured of the recording if it recorded the documents, in some instances, it may be necessary to permit the property owner to record the documents, such as those being done with the closing on a property sale. This item was heard at a public hearing on August 21, 2001. At that time, the amendment was tabled to answer questions and concerns raised as part of the hearing. Additionally, staff has revised the ordinance language consistent with the amendment approved by City Council on July 9, 2001. The city is precluded by state statute from prohibiting the changing of lot lines by individuals. These types of activity, exemptions (1) and (2), are not subdivisions. Even with the current language in our ordinance, the city could be compelled to approve a lot line change, regardless of road access or zoning requirements. Exemption (3) is the language from the existing ordinance and is not.being amended. Staff' s intent was to require that these property line changes be recorded in a timely manner. Currently, there is no regulation regarding the recording of these documents. EXISTING ORDINANCE Section 18-37. Exemption. (a) The zoning administrator shall certify that the following conveyances are exempt from platting if the new and residual parcels meet the minimum requirements of the zoning ordinance for a buildable lot and are on a public street or private street serving up to 4 lots. The applicant shall furnish the city a survey prepared and signed by a registered land surveyor for review: be City of Chanhassen. A growing community with clean lakes, quality schools, a charming downtown, thriving businesses, and beautiful /)arks. A ereat /)&ce to live, work, and olay. Planning Commission September 18,2001 Page 2 (1) Dividing a platted lot to add a portion of the lot to an abutting lot; (2) Dividing a metes and bounds parcel to add a portion of the parcel to an abutting parcel; (3) In areas outside the urban services area, the separation of a parcel into two (2) or three (3) parcels if all resulting parcels are capable of being further subdivided into buildable lots under the zoning ordinance. ANALYSIS OF PROPOSED ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS The City Attorney has advised staff that item one and two are not considered subdivisions under state statute and they do not have to comply with subdivision requirements. Item three is considered a subdivision because of the creation of new lots and, therefore, would be required to meet the subdivision requirements were it not for the exemption. Staff has prepared a strike through and bold format to show proposed changes to the ordinance. Section 18-37. Exemption. (a) The zoning administrator shall certify that the following conveyances, known as administrative subdivisions, are exempt from platting if thc ncw and rcsidual parccls mc'ct thc minimum requircmcnts of thc zoning ordinancc for a buildablc lot and are on a public stroct or public stroct scrving up to 4 lots. The applicant shall furnish the city a survey prepared and signed by a registered land surveyor for review: and (1) Dividing a platted lot to add a portion of the lot to an abutting lot; (2) Dividing a metes and bounds parcel to add a portion of the parcel to an abutting parcel; (3) In areas outside the urban services area, the separation of a parcel into two (2) or three (3) parcels if all resulting parcels are capable of being further subdivided into buildable lots under the zoning ordinance. (c) Upon approval of an administrative or metes and bounds subdivision, the city shall notify the applicant of the approval and within thirty (30) days thereafter, the applicant or the city attorney shall file the documents with the county recorder and furnish the city evidence of such recording. Failure of the applicant to comply shall be cause for revoking the city's approval. RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the amendment to Section 18-37 exemptions. ATTACHMENTS 1. Ordinance Amending Section 18-37 City of Chanhassen Code 2. Planning Commission Minutes of August 21, 2001 CITY OF CHANHASSEN CARVER AND HENNEPIN COUNTIES, MINNESOTA ORDINANCE NO. AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 18 OF THE CHANHASSEN CITY CODE, THE CITY'S SUBDIVISION ORDINANCE THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CHANHASSEN ORDAINS: Section 1. Section 18-37 (a) of the Chanhassen City Code, is hereby amended: (a) The zoning administrator shall certify that the following conveyances, known as administrative subdivisions, are exempt from platting. The applicant shall furnish the city a survey prepared and signed by a registered land surveyor for review: (1) Dividing a platted lot to add a portion of the lot to an abutting lot; (2) Dividing a metes and bounds parcel to add a portion of the parcel to an abutting parcel; (3) In areas outside the urban services area, the separation of a parcel into two (2) or three (3) parcels if all resulting parcels are capable of being further subdivided into buildable lots under the zoning ordinance. Section 2. Add Section 18-37 (c) Upon approval of an administrative or metes and bounds subdivision, the city shall notify the applicant of the approval and within thirty (30) days thereafter, the applicant or the city attorney shall file the documents with the county recorder and furnish the city evidence of such recording. Failure of the applicant to comply shall be cause for revoking the city's approval. Section 3. This ordinance shall be effective immediately upon its passage and publication. PASSED AND ADOPTED by the Chanhassen City Council this ,2001. day of ATI'EST: Todd Gerhardt, City Manager Linda C. Jansen, Mayor Planning Commission Meeting - August 21,200 ! Slagle: Wait, wait, wait. Was it issued in the paper as a public hearing? Aanenson: Correct. Slagle: Thank you. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER AMENDMENTS TO THE CITY CODE CLARIFYING THE PROCEDURES FOR ADMINISTRATIVE SUBDIVISIONS. Kate Aanenson presented the staff report on this item. Blackowiak: Okay, does anyone have questions of staff? Sacchet: One question. Has this been reviewed with the City Attorney? Aanenson: Yes. It has reviewed it and he did make recommendations for change and those have been incorporated into it. Sacchet: Thank you. Blackowiak: Okay, any other questions? I have a quick question. Kate, how many administrative subdivisions would you have that are not recorded in a timely fashion? And what is the down side of them not being recorded in a timely fashion, aside from mapping and. Aanenson: That's a main thing and because when you have an administrative subdivision where you've combined two lots, which the ordinance requires is there's a vacant lot between two they can administratively split that lot and each add to it to make two bigger lots. They come in for a building permit or the transfer of sale and they get hung up that way. It's very confusing .... under the circumstances where you're leaving it up to the, sometimes it just doesn't follow through and it needs to be. There's implications too as far as...when there's different, with the recorder's office again, Tax parcel notification, that kind of thing. Blackowiak: Taxes. Aanenson: Taxes, all that so it needs to be timely. Blackowiak: Alrighty. Well that makes sense to me. This is an item that is open for public hearing so if anybody would like to comment, please come to the podium. State your name and address for the record. Janet Paulsen: My name is Janet Paulsen. I live at 7305 Laredo Drive. I have some copies to give you. I just want to walk through. So I wish to address Section 18-37, Exemptions and walk you through the changes that have occurred this summer and those which are proposed. The front page under the letter is the original code. An existing, I have it underlined in yellow marker is not italicized. On the next page, 18-37 as sent by the staff to the Planning Commission for the June 17th or 18th meeting. Existing is italicized and private street is added. On the next page is the minutes of the meeting. Alison requests existing to be added to private street. And then 18-37 on the next page as sent to council, existing is removed and private street serving up to 4 lots is added as requested. They did not approve the removal of existing. I don't think council was aware of that and it passed council. And now on the next page 13 Planning Commission Meeting - August 21, 2001 they're back to the original code, ignoring the council action but are removing minimum requirements for a buildable lot and existing public streets. The reason given is to require administrative subdivisions recorded in a more timely manner but no word it states this. I think it's baloney. Another reason given is that the city attorney advised that items 1 and 2 are not subdivisions under State Statute, but it's been in our code for years. What does it matter what State Statute says if that's just a minimum. We can put whatever we want on our statutes. This is Chanhassen's prerogative. We can keep this in. If this pass we'd be giving more authority to our local government administrator with really no checks and balances. What advantages there to the citizens of Chanhassen except that developers might have an easier time. No minimum requirements of the zoning ordinance and no existing public or private streets, what would that mean for a developer? What would that mean for existing neighborhoods? Why is this here? I just say to you be vigilant. Be demanding because we're depending on you to defend us. This is our only public hearing and in council we're limited to 5 minutes per subject and as a citizen and taxpayer I resent this time being spent by staff to negate our code which protects our property from being devoured by government and our neighborhoods changed for the worst. That's all. Blackowiak: Okay, thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak on this item? Debbie Lloyd: Debbie Lloyd, 7302 Laredo Drive. I think one of the greatest difficulties of this whole process is the time involved for review, and I' ve talked about this before. You know you want citizen involvement. You as a Planning Commission I think have a tremendous job to review all this material. Get it Thursday night. You have a weekend. You know really, how much time do you have to dig and look and we've been looking at a lot of facts and things are not flowing perfectly. We don't want to be vigilantes as we've been called. We understand here at the city that's our name. That's not what we're here to do. We just want things to be done right and correctly. It sure would be nice to have an extra week in the process all the way along. It even came up tonight with the landowners of the fen. The Paulsen's mailed some information to you. It didn't reach your homes I don't believe in time for you to review it. Sacchet: I got mine. Slagle: I didn't get one. Debbie Lloyd: I just think there' S difficulty in the process. I don't think we're trying to be difficult. We're just trying to watch out for things because it's obvious to us no'one else is really watching. Thank you. Blackowiak: Anyone else like to comment? Okay, I'm going to leave the public hearing open. Kate I'll give you a chance'to comment if you have anything you'd like to say. Go ahead. Aanenson: I have to go through the comments. I guess I didn't understand. Blackowiak: It's a lot to take in in just a few moments, I certainly understand. Aanenson: If the Planning Commission wants to take more time, there's no rush on this. That' s fine. If you want to table it, I have no problem with that and go through that. Try to get back to them with their comments. Blackowiak: Okay. Then I will close the public hearing and commissioners, do you have comments and give me some direction. What are you thinking? I'm listening. 14 Planning Commission Meeting - August 21, 2001 Slagle: I will, I'll throw out. I mean the first question that I would have, or would desire to have answered is, was there verbiage that you requested to be in, I think that's the way this is represented, or somehow we wanted to have into a motion or something, that didn't get conveyed to the City Council to vote on? And it appears that way so the first question I would have is just how did that happen2 I'm assuming, I'm hoping just an incident oversight and so that would answer. Once that's answered I would have a pretty good feel as to what I would then want the direction to be. And obviously that's something we can't find out tonight but that's the thing I would like to ask and that's all. Blackowiak: Okay. Uli, comments? Sacchet: Yeah a few comments. I'm a little bit at a loss. I mean I always appreciate your input and I did get your letter by the way from the Paulsen' s. And I appreciate getting that. I think it's a tremendous help, but I don't think your viewed in a negative way for all your hard work. I think I appreciate your work. However, the presentation today I had a really hard time correlating with what' s in front of us. I mean and maybe it's just because I didn't ponder this enough, which is very possible or I'm missing the point but the way I see what' s in front of us here, this first item of public hearing right now is to change the code that we have a solution for administrative subdivision so that staff actually has the leverage to have these boundaries recorded within a useful amount of time. Which to me seems pretty straight forward so what I'm wondering is, am I missing something? And based on Kate's comment, and maybe it does take some time to address all the comments again. I certainly would need some time to adjust the comments that came up to just first of all find out exactly how to correlate to the particular issue in front of us. Blackowiak: Kate, would you like to add anything at this point? Aanenson: We'll respond back in writing. We can wait, that's fine. Blackowiak: Okay. Bruce, any comments? Feik: I was not at the 6-19 meeting so I'm not sure what my comments would, how they would be productive. Blackowiak: Yes, I did have a chance to take a look at this. I had two letters from the Paulsen's, so thank you. That's right, maybe I got your's. And I believe I'm tracking what your point is. In other words that initial comments Planning Cormnission made did not get forwarded in their entirety to the City Council. Changes were probably made by the City Council based on less than the full comments that were made by the commission, therefore the changes that we're considering tonight may be based on faulty original material. That's how I'm reading this entire thing. That it kind of goes back to June and things maybe aren't tracking right. And I don't have an answer for that but. Aanenson: I could answer it but we're going to, it's he said, she said. Blackowiak: Exactly. Aanenson: The verbatim minutes are always attached to the staff report. Your comments were conveyed. The city attorney also gives a recommendation and we'll respond in writing to that and I'd be happy to table it and put that in writing, but your vote was conveyed and the verbatim minutes are attached to what your recommendation. 15 Planning Commission Meeting - August 21, 2001 Blackowiak: Right, okay. Aanenson: The city attorney also makes a recommendation on what the language should be, so. Blackowiak: So it's very possible then that the city attorney made a recommendation at the council. Aanenson: Very possible. Blackowiak: Used the city, weighed what he said more heavily and used his recommendation as opposed to the Planning Commission's recommendation. A1-Jaff: That's exactly what happened. Slagle: Can I ask just one question? When staff provides us with recommendations, as in this case on the 19th, does the city attorney at that point provide the legal, or his recommendations as to the language that's to be used because I guess I'd feel a little awkward if what we're voting on in any situation is going to be then shown to the attorney and then he re-words it. Why wouldn't he do that before we vote? Aanenson: You' re making a recommendation. You can recommend whatever you want to give input to the council. Ultimately the City Council' s going to make a decision based on if they have a question, advice of the city attorney. Slagle: I'm with you but since we're going off of your recommendations most of the time of what, you know I mean we put a lot of weight to that, I'm just wondering why, and maybe the answer is yes, he does look at them and does tell you what to put in. Aanenson: Let's back up. We had language in there. You requested a change. Okay the city attorney reviewed your recommendation for a change so we had language in there that he approved. You recommended a change. He reviewed your recommendation. Slagle: Okay. Then I just have a simple question, and this is more just universal again. Could be a dumb question but do cities have in their planning commissions, I mean do they have attorneys present? Is that a usual thing or? Aanenson: No. Slagle: It's non, okay. Okay. Blackowiak: Bruce, do you have anything? Feik: No. Blackowiak: No, okay. Sacchet: Yeah, as we were discussing this I looked at this a little more carefully and I do have a question. It appears to me at first glance that the issue that was brought up by Ms. Paulsen is only marginally related to actually the motion that's brought in front of us for a recommendation tonight. I do think she does have, she has an issue but my question is, with the change that's being proposed by staff, 16 Planning Commission Meeting -August 21, 2001 it's my understanding that we are putting in an extra safeguard to get these administrative subdivisions actually recorded properly, is that correct Kate? Aanenson: That's the intent. Sacchet: And are we giving anything away? It seems to me like we're actually trying to fill a loophole that these subdivisions do not get recorded and staff doesn't have a recourse to get them recorded, which is a good thing. But are we giving anything away by doing this the way it's worded? Aanenson: Well that's their opinion and again I'd like to respond to that in writing. Sacchet: Because I don't quite see how we're giving something away at this point, based on how I'm reading it. But I might be missing something. Based on how I see it right now, I mean I'd be prepared to pass this onto council with this recommendation and I would think that at the same time in parallel I would like to look at what the issues are that can be addressed that were brought up. That's where I stand with this. Blackowiak: Okay, well. I don't know if I've got anything to add but I guess I have a feel from where it is and I'm looking towards you Kate. You say you want to address this in writing. Is it something you'd like to address before we move this forward or what's your feeling? Do we need to button this down a little bit better before it goes on? I feel like we're not getting anything done tonight but that's okay. Some nights are just like that I guess. Aanenson: I don't know how to answer that. Every time you make an amendment it comes back to somehow a public street, a subdivision and I want to address that to say specifically what this is doing and address their questions so if they feel like they're not getting the time at the council. Sacchet: If I may comment on this? Blackowiak: Certainly, go ahead. Sacchet: I think staff is looking to us for guidance with that. I think we have to make this decision. I personally would feel comfortable to pass this on to council with the request to staff to address the concerns that were brought forward in the comments. For this particular one. Blackowiak: Yeah, I'm just wondering if there is indeed something missing from this Section 18-37. I think that's the whole crux of the argument. Is something missing from 18-37 as we see it right now? And I can't track that all date to date to date. That's my whole thing. Because there are certain things that are not, that are struck out and when were they struck out and, I don't know. So I will ask for a motion. Sacchet: I'll be bold. Blackowiak: Be bold Uli. Sacchet: I do move that, where is it? That the Planning Commission recommends approval of the amendment to Section 18-37, Exemptions as presented in the staff report with the additional request that staff research the comments that were brought forth in the public hearing so that those things are straight and laid out for the consideration of council. 17 Planning Commission Meeting - August 21, 2001 Blackowiak: There's been a motion. Is there a second? Feik: I was not here for the long discussion you had in June so I'd feel...making a second. Blackowiak: Well I can't second so it's up to you. You don't want to second this? Sacchet: Motion doesn't fly, alright. Blackowiak: Okay then will you please withdraw your motion. Sacchet: I withdraw my motion. Blackowiak: Okay. I'll entertain another motion. Slagle: Motion to table this. I'll make a motion that we table the proposed Section 18-37, Exemptions until further information from staff. Further, help me out. Feik: That works. Slagle: Okay. Further information from staff. Blackowiak: Okay. There's a motion. Is there a second? Feik: I'll second. Slagle moved, Feik seconded that the Planning Commission table action on the amendment to City Code Section 18-37, Exemptions until further information is received from staff. All voted in favor, except Sacchet who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 1. Blackowiak: And comments. Sacchet: I would have liked to pass this through. Blackowiak: Okay. And I would like to make one comment as well. I will direct staff to respond in writing to the comments made by the Paulsen's and to attach that to our next packet when we see this again and also I want that attached to council's packet when it goes to council so they have a written copy of what's been happening this evening so, okay. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER AMENDMENTS TO THE CITY CODE TO PERMIT ONLY ONE DRIVEWAY ACCESS PER LOT. Sharmin AI-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. 18