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PC 2011 11 01CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 1, 2011 Chairman Aller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, Mark Undestad, Tom Doll, Kathleen Thomas, Kevin Ellsworth, Kim Tennyson and Lisa Hokkanen STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Paul Oehme, City Engineer /Public Works Director; Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer; Sharmeen Al -Jaff, Senior Planner; and Todd Gerhardt, City Manager PUBLIC PRESENT: Mark Giancola 8441 Rosewood Drive Mary Rubai 7340 Frontier Trail Marjorie & Jesse Knight 2014 Clover Court Steven L. Cohen & Allyson Segar -Cohen 7022 Sandy Hook Circle Gary Disch 8170 Marsh Drive Dan Mertes 8671 Flamingo Drive Brad Karels 8105 Dakota Lane Anne & Bill Fisher 1321 Lake Drive West 4225 Dorothy Downing 7200 Juniper Avenue, Excelsior Linda Landsman 7329 Frontier Trail Larry Pastorek 7071 Shawnee Lane Gary Theis 1696 Valley Ridge Trail North Sarah Thomas 2555 Longacres Drive Julia Seper 1081 Lake Lucy Road Janice Schulter 8691 Chanhassen Hills Drive North Candance G. Carlson 7720 Arboretum Village Circle Karen Walker 7591 Walnut Curve Sandra Resnik 7370 Kurvers Point Brenda Witzig 9520 Washington Boulevard 43 Joyce Arlt 8434 Burlwood Drive Dan Mahady 1020 Butte Court John Kunitz 6441 Bretton Way Joe & Desiree Nozling 8410 West Lake Drive Jackie & Doug Jacobson 1121 Dove Court Scott & Marcia Hippen 7017 Cheyenne Trail Bob & Susan Seward 8031 Cheyenne Trail Sheryl Mickelsen 981 Pontiac Lane Adele Pint 1641 Koehnen Circle Chris Miller 8401 West Lake Drive Kirsten McBeken 1401 Field Creek Circle, Victoria Steve Taborek 8022 Cheyenne Avenue Mark Arrington 870 Lake Susan Hills Drive Tonya Stier 9200 Ellendale Lane Kristi Strang 1701 Valley Ridge Trail South Kurt Kuhlmann 8445 Powers Place Alan & Barb Johnson 700 Lake Susan Hills Drive John & Jennifer Bentz 9840 Deerbrook Drive Kelly Woods 850 Lake Susan Hills Drive Patrick Rutledge 7568 Walnut Curve Shelley Kerber 6025 Whitney Circle Chris Robinson 7900 Market Boulevard Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 David Enright Kurt Weimer Susan & Rian Nobel Irene Oberstar Rick Dorsey Ted Lamson Christine Meier Robby Virnig Margaret DiMarco John Prondzinski, Ridgeview Medical Center John & Karl Davis Barry McKinney Edwin Everett Tim Bloudek Pat & Tom Potter Lauren Kopp Emily Mattran Tim Polivany Wayne Skoblik Jean & Dale Rusch Rich Gavert Scott B. Haas Barry & Anita Steckling Paul & Darlene Ryan Lee Kaufman Linda Boerboom J. Wagle Bruce VonOrnum Kathi Cadmus Jane Gharbi Curt Kobilaresik Sue Bogan George Beinik Debra Pladsen Lana & Doug Haberman Dave Mayer Karen Zellner Christoph Leser Colleen Cannon Darlene Loving Ronald & Cynthia Tonn James Hastreiter Brian Bole Chris Johnson G. Dye Ben Newton Joseph O'Connor Gloria J. Cox Tom Kraus Terry McGinley Ellis Thomas 795 Ponderosa Drive 6211 Dogwood Avenue 7100 Tecumseh Lane 2170 Baneberry Way West 14215 Green View Court, Eden Prairie 680 Lake Susan Hills Drive 8437 Rosewood Drive 26380 Shorewood Oaks Drive, Shorewood 1131 Dove Court 500 So. Maple Street, Waconia 8200 West Lake Court 8046 Cheyenne Avenue 6301 Near Mountain Boulevard 1171 Homestead Lane 6531 Devonshire Drive 8020 Hidden Circle 8210 West Lake Court 181 Fox Hollow Drive 409 Del Rio Drive 2856 Century Trail 7701 Frontier Trail 7264 Pontiac Circle 8320 West Lake Court 8310 West Lake Court 300 Hidden Lane 8261 West Lake Court 8411 Egret Court 8150 Hidden Court 8426 Stone Creek Court 1401 Crest Drive 9149 Springfield Drive 7757 Buttercup Court 412 West 76 Street 1490 Heron Drive 520 Pleasant View Road 8726 Flamingo Drive 7616 Frontier Trail 8110 Marsh Drive 8110 Marsh Drive 7112 Pontiac Circle 8300 West Lake Court 6990 Tecumseh Lane 1577 Bluebill Trail Chanhassen 1331 Lake Drive West 1560 Lake Susan Hills 811 Lake Susan Hills Drive 6990 Shawnee Lane 7744 Vasserman Trail 920 Lake Susan Hills Drive 406 West 76 Street 2 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 John & Stacey Boshacker 7428 Bent Bow Trail Scott Paulson 634 Summerfield Lane Mark Ploof 7040 Tecumseh Lane Debbie Lloyd 7302 Laredo Drive Kathleen Haas 7264 Pontiac Circle Jackie Ottoson 7080 Harrison Hill Terrace Lori Tollberg 6981 Pima Lane Tim Boyce 8941 Audubon Road Tana Erickson 8941 Audubon Road Bob Ayotte Chanhassen Michael & Virginia Bailey 7472 Saratoga Drive Charlie & Julie Littfin 7609 Laredo Drive Mark Flodoski 2204 Sommergate Katie Mahannah 92 Shasta Circle East Holly White 8657 Valley Ridge Court Irina Osadchuk 7301 Pontiac Circle Carmen Ried 8301 West Lake Court Ross Huseby 1431 Heron Drive Ana Moritz 860 Lake Susan Hills Drive Jane Revsbech 2155 Murray Hill Court Jack Krueger 7606 Kiowa Avenue Greg & Kelly Hastings 9217 Lake Riley Boulevard Jay Donohue 6561 Troendle Circle Larry White 8657 Valley Ridge Court Bill & Kelly Schulte 8420 West Lake Drive Stephanie Fisher 1451 Heron Drive David & Elizabeth Kressler 1750 Valley Ridge Trail North Christine Callahan 8595 Drake Court Katherine Peterson 7713 Vasserman Place Kent Ludford 8615 Valley View Court Mike Boyer 2370 Bridle Creek Circle David & Kristy Brackett 1320 Lake Susan Hills Drive PUBLIC HEARING: WALMART: REOUEST FOR CONCEPT PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD) APPROVAL FOR A COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF A 120,000 SQUARE FOOT WALMART STORE ON APPROXIMATELY 14.10 ACRES OF LAND LOCATED AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF HIGHWAY 5 AND POWERS BOULEVARD (1000 PARK ROAD). APPLICANT: WALMART, C/O KIMLEY -HORN AND ASSOCIATES, INC. PLANNING CASE 2011 -11. Aller: Welcome. I'm calling to order the Planning Commission meeting for the City of Chanhassen today, November 1, 2011. The Planning Commission is a recommending body to the City Council. We suggest you follow the item on hand today with the City Council for final action. That date is tentatively November 28, 2011. Public input will be accepted when the Planning Commission opens the public hearing portion of this item. Any persons wishing to speak should come up to the podium. State your name and address for the record. We have a number of individuals here tonight. We also have overflow in the senior center which are watching this live as well. Those individuals over there are certainly welcome to come to the podium when the public hearing is open to give and provide their comments to the commission. The item will be introduced. Staff will make the presentation of it's report. The applicant may come forward and make a developer presentation. I'll then open a public hearing for input. After individuals have spoken, we will close the public hearing. Commission members may make comment. I will request a motion and we will act on a Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 motion or take other action. For purposes of this evening, because of the large number of individuals present we'd like to limit your comments to approximately 3 minutes. We don't want to cut you off but we'd like to have everyone pay attention to the individuals and give respect to the individuals who speak before you. Listen to what they have to say. Hopefully we're not repeating comments over and over and over and over again so that we can make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to speak tonight. So we thank you for paying attention. Being respectful to other speakers and with that we'll go ahead and open with the staff presentation. Aanenson: Thank you Chairman, members of the Planning Commission. I just want to also, or maybe a housekeeping item. Typically we try to end by 10:30 Chairman so we may take a bio break somewhere in there. Kind of gauge how long the meeting's going just so the audience knows kind of can anticipate that coming. Aller: Yes, in our official by -laws we are expected to close at 10:30. If it's close we may extend that. We may take a motion at that time to take other action, extend or to continue for further information which would go directly to the City Council if necessary. Thank you. Aanenson: Alright, thank you. Audience: Can you turn up the mic's so we can hear you? Very hard Aanenson: Again thank you. This request is for a conceptual planned unit development on approximately 14 acres of land located at the southeast corner of Highway 5 and Powers Boulevard. The Planning Case is 2011 -11. I'd like to start off by kind of going back in time and talking about when we updated the last element of, the last iteration of the comprehensive plan, which is our 2030 plan, and kind of get some historical context to the commercial zoning district in the city of Chanhassen. This is also found in the staff report and all these documents are also online. The comprehensive plan, the City's zoning ordinance and the McComb's study which I'll also talk about. So for background, the retail market study done in 2006 was kind of a pre- cursor to kind of putting in place the City's commercial land use. So the City has maintained a long standing policy of directing commercial development into the central business district. Chanhassen historically maintains an active business community. With the construction of 312 the City saw an opportunity to re- examine the commercial opportunities in the downtown core of the city so in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce they contracted with the McComb's Group to study the retail opportunities. The study found that the city could support an additional potential regional mall and continue to have a healthy downtown business district. So with that I'm going to kind of outline some of the elements that the McComb's study looked at. So they examined the existing shopping patterns and potential retail areas in Chanhassen and they were evaluated determined their suitability for development. So that would be vacant parcels. Also some parcels that could be used for redevelopment. The shopping areas competitive with Chanhassen were and commercial areas were also identified and evaluated to determine competitive impacts on future development. Retail development. Owners and managers of businesses in Chanhassen were interviewed to obtain their observations on retail trends, competitive pressures, where their customers lived and other information pertinent to the study, including opinions about downtown Chanhassen's strengths and it's weaknesses and ideas for possible impacts of the downtown, with the downtown in the new potential 312 commercial area. So businesses in the downtown Chanhassen were asked to participate in a survey of their customers and some of the businesses did participate in that survey to find additional information about why people shop where they did in the downtown core. This information was helped to identify the Chanhassen's trade area. Developers, brokers and realtors and interested developers were also interviewed by the McComb's Group to talk to them about what they saw as future development potentials, and that also included not only retail but some of the industrial parks. So from this the estimated future demand for retail of Chanhassen was compared to kind of the surrounding cities. The outcome of that study said that there was additional potential for downtown commercial development, potentially 12 acres and that there was in the 312 4 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 interchange at Powers Boulevard and the new 312, that there could be up to 88 to 113 retail acres for development. So with that this is again from the 2006 McComb's Study where they identified the trade area for the city of Chanhassen. So there's kind of concentric rings here. The smallest area would be the convenience trade area and that's where we consider kind of the neighborhood trade area. Maybe gas stations and the like. So this area kind of delineates kind of just the core, maybe the southern part of Chanhassen. The next ring would be the middle ring would be the downtown. This is kind of where people that would come to the downtown, where they would be traveling from. So it kind of cuts through Lake Minnetonka. As far west as Waconia. Again when this was done there wasn't a Target yet in Waconia so that trade area has probably changed a little bit, and then also as far east as Eden Prairie. Then that bigger ring showed potential if the City was to do a lifestyle center which was documented based on rate of growth, household income for potential regional lifestyle center which had different implications and through the comprehensive plan process we spent a lot of time talking about differentiating the uses there that would be different than what would be the daily needs of the downtown commercial area. So with that, that information then was put into the comprehensive plan and when we had all the meetings on the commercial districts this was a map that was put out at all the open houses and the like so what this map created was the distinct districts that we have in the city. The downtown, which is the area shown as A. The downtown community commercial district. B would be those neighborhood areas for example along 7 and 41. Those convenience areas where you can get gas and some other convenience commercial. The newest one being down on Lyman Boulevard and 101 with the Kwik Trip. And then C would be the community commercial. The new district that we'll be talking about a little bit more in detail tonight and that was to provide additional opportunities to strengthen the downtown core. And then finally the potential for a regional mall at the intersection, interchange of 312 and Powers Boulevard, just south of Lyman. Again that's shown as the area D. And again there was specific criteria that we put in place for that potential regional mall about, that it be different than the downtown core and that it not be a series of strip or kind of big box retail. That kind of we said we wanted to provide opportunities for those sort of things to happen closer to the core. So with that, this is the downtown zoning districts in which we're going to kind of focus on and we're going to zoom into this specific area but this was prior to the rezoning of the downtown core with the existing districts where we have highway business is more kind of auto related. The neighborhood business district was actually where Park Nicollet and some of those uses are. St. Hubert's south of Highway 5 which has some commercial. Hotels, restaurants, and then the St. Hubert's school. The PUD where Target /Cub is and then the BG, Office Max and the like and then the IOP and the community commercial would be that area shown in green. So with that the adoption of the comprehensive plan we stated that we would move forward and rezone some of the core of the downtown to actually up zone and allow for greater intensity. So the City changed the general business to central business district because that provides for more intense development of those uses. Currently Southwest Transit is constructing a ramp behind the Dinner Theater. That also will allow for additional development in that, and redevelopment in that area which we anticipate. So the community commercial district. So when we finished the comprehensive plan we said we will now develop two new zoning districts. A potential regional mall and the community commercial district. To be clear this property has dual guiding. It can either be office industrial or it can be community commercial. The intent of the community commercial by the zoning district, as stated in the zoning district that we created, was to provide for large scale commercial developments, because we were out of space for that in the downtown core. That these large scale commercial or office users you know needed high, needed visibility from collector roads. And then we also said that the minimum could be 15,000 square feet and that the largest could be no bigger than 65,000 square feet so again it was to provide that opportunity for some larger scale users. So now I want to take some time and talk about this specific application and how it relates to what I just presented. So the applicant is requesting a general concept plan for a PUD. The site again is currently zoned industrial office park. With the adoption of the 2030 plan in 2008 the City Council guided this property for either community commercial or for the office industrial but they saw the opportunity for some additional retail. The request for a planned unit concept allows the applicant to seek relief from the standards of the conventional zoning district by creating a unique district rather than asking for variances of the underlying zoning district. So the closest conventional district to this would be the community commercial. So the planned unit development offers Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 flexibility to develop a site through relaxation of some of the normal zoning district. The use of the PUD allows for greater variety of uses. Construction of phasing a potential lower development costs. In exchange for that flexibility the City has an expectation that the development will result in significant higher quality and more sensitive proposal that would have been the case. Using the other more standard zoning districts. So it is the applicant's responsibility to demonstrate to the City's expectations that they are to be realized against the criteria of the PUD. So the PUD standards itself, they still have to meet, this PUD request still has to meet the City's architectural standards. It still has to meet the flood plain, wetland, shoreland districts and as stated in the staff report they have to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. They also have to demonstrate that they offer the higher quality of architecture as stated and any other design standards cited in that section including the landscaping, parking and the like. So again the uniqueness of each PUD will be related against those 9 criteria. So the site itself. This is a 14 acre site with an existing building, footprint of 140,000 square feet. There actually is a mezzanine on this building so the total square footage on that current site building is 154,700 square feet. The original building was occupied by Victory Envelope and the building has been vacant for a number of years. They have leased space in there but it's predominantly vacant. With this proposal the current building would be torn down. Again to be clear, just to make sure everybody knows where we are, this would be Highway 5 and this would be Powers Boulevard so access would be via Park Road. Again the elevation changes significantly on this parcel so if you're up on Highway 5 at this point, it's about 950. If you drop down about 40 feet down to, at the bottom of the creek here, about 910 so there's significant grade change on the site. The site itself is adjacent to a creek and a wetlands. The wetlands is classified as a Manage II in our storm water management plan and a Manage II requires a 20 foot buffer and a 30 foot setback from this is required so the concept plan shows a majority of the wetland less than 30 feet. So this is in this area here, does not meet the required setback. So again it's pinched pretty tight. This red is a retaining wall so the retaining walls, in order to meet the topography, this is graded significantly so the retaining walls would be to provide for that. And I'll go through that in a minute but so the wetland again is impacted. So the encroachment into the wetland, the buffer setback again is caused by the retaining wall and again the values of the wetland are, we believe are impacted by the retaining wall itself into that encroachment of the wetland. In addition there's tree loss which would be further detriment to the wetland and the volume and quality of water running into this creek. So as I stated the grading proposed, the finished floor elevation, that's this area here, is proposed to be 931 which is approximately 9 feet lower than the ground elevation on the east side of the building. The concept plan includes the retaining walls. Up to 21 feet on the west side and 16 1/2 feet on both the north and the east side. So that would be this area shown in red here. Next thing I'd like to talk about is the architectural compliance. Again even though they're going for the PUD they do have to meet the City's architectural standards. So the city code requires that the development comply with certain minimum requirements and as stated the design standards which are found in the city code. So for material and design, the materials on the building include the EFIS and pre -cast panels. Tilt up panels that are grid or grid like in appearance. EFIS can be used as an accent material. It may occupy no more than 15% and the concern that we have with the building is that it's significant, it does not provide the significantly higher architectural standards that we would anticipate with a PUD. The color of the building does meet the City's requirements. So size, portion and placement as part of the architecture review. The entry does have a pronounced, is pronounced with a canopy over the front entry. There are recesses and articulation in the building. Projections around the windows and the like. The highest point of the roof is about 35 feet. The building needs to make sure that their rooftop equipment, again this is conceptual review so there's not all the engineering's on that so it appears that there is a parapet wall that would be screening. From information from the applicant it does appear that they are proposing that and, or minimal rooftop equipment on the top. I think I just talked about the height of the building. So this is again the continued front of the building. Again I think there's some things that you can do to enhance again to meet the architectural standards. A little bit more articulation on the front. Facade transparencies, all views from the public must be 50% windows and doors and there are some perspectives that don't. This southern perspective, the one in the bottom, excuse me, would be a perspective heading east on Highway 5 and in this area where you've got the trash enclosure you've got some areas that it would be viewed that would also have to have different architectural on them to meet the requirements because they again are viewed by the public. 0 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Parking. So if you look in this area and go back to the original site plan, the parking plan takes advantage of compact parking stalls of maximum of 25% or 116 stalls. The concern that the staff has is that the parking requirements do allow compact stalls but they really shouldn't be in a place with high turnover and so if you're in an office building where you don't have as much traffic going in and out. So not only deficient in parking spaces by 12 %, they maximize the number of small parking stalls which would be a concern when you have a lot of high turnover in a parking lot. The refuse screening does meet code as far as it being in the rear of the building and appropriately screened. So we talked about this, another exposure. This would be Highway 5 kind of heading south on Powers where again there's areas that are viewed from the public that aren't, need to be either facade modulation or smaller increments of that instead of the large expanses of the tilt up's. So again this wouldn't comply. And then the sign itself does not meet the city code, but again this is conceptual review so those things sometimes change over. With that I'm going to turn it over to the City Engineer and let him kind of go through the traffic. Oehme: Thanks Ms. Aanenson. Good evening Commissioner Aller, commission members. Aller: Good evening. Oehme: I'd like to touch on the traffic analysis that was completed for the project. As part of the application the developer was required to complete a traffic impact analysis. As part of the report on traffic turning movements and traffic counts were gathered. So based on Carver County traffic modeling and the City's traffic analysis zoning estimates for traffic distributions were also calculated. Carver County and MnDOT have commented on this report and that is included in your packet. The City also completed an independent traffic impact analysis so this first slide here just shows, based upon that analysis, where the traffic distributions potential for the site would come from. So an example, Highway 5 here is shown. In this location 35% of the traffic wanting to potentially go to the site would come off of 5. Make a left turn on Powers and then come in down through Park Road here. So and likewise 5% at east bound Park Road. So using that information, also analysis was taken to the next step using the Institute of Transportation Engineering Trip Generations. Peak trip generations were calculated. This is a typical analysis that's done for these type of developments and put in all developments. Here's the potential traffic distributions E here shown for the site and during the p.m. peak hours so for example 142 trips would potentially make that right hand turn off of Powers Boulevard into Park Road. So this slide shows the total estimated traffic volumes for the peak p.m. hours. Again we, traffic analysis you try, you look at the peak impact time periods for these type of developments and analyze your traffic on those type of situations. Also included in these, in this analysis was the pass by traffic. That's the traffic that potentially is going down 5. Sees a sign for this particular location. Stops in. You know buys product at this potential, at this site and then would move on so about 28% we're estimating would, of traffic would potentially be this pass by traffic. So this, these numbers show what the p.m. peak traffic would be for 2013 potentially when this site development would be open, and then also we projected out into the 2030 timeframe too. The 2030 volumes also include for potential parcels that could be developed or redeveloped in the commercial community district in this area and the, and also include the potential regional lifestyle center that is just south of Lyman. That potential traffic was included in the 2030 analysis as well. The total anticipated trips for the site, for this development is, could be as high as 560 trips in the hour of the p.m. peak so 500 trips. That includes the traffic entering the site and then also the trips exiting the site. Just briefly talk about access to the site. This slide shows the existing access to the site, which is the aerial photo here. There's the west access as it's shown and the east access is shown here. The proposed curb line is shown here in yellow. Here's the new parking area. The drive aisles here and the shifting of the easterly access point. This access point is proposed to be a right - in/right -out. Based upon the traffic analysis the amount of volume of traffic that potentially come in and exit this location, if it would be left here without a right - in/right -out would create detrimental impacts to the intersection of Park Road and Powers. Right hand turn lane is also proposed at this location. The access is, the east access is planned to be shifted to the west as much as possible to create more turn lane at this location. This shift however is not enough or not recommended enough. Staff would prefer that that access be shifted over farther to gain more 7 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 stacking in this turn lane and decrease some conflicts at that location. Again a raised median is proposed at, in the center of Park Road to prohibit traffic exiting at this location from making a left hand turn onto Park Road and onto Powers Boulevard. So with that, this slide shows potential conflicts and traffic issues that staff has identified. Just touch briefly on some of the proposed turn lane taper at this location. Powers Boulevard immediately after the turn off of Powers Drive would have to make a decision whether or not to turn at this location. The access we feel is just so close to the intersection of Powers that there might be some conflicts there. Some hesitation in terms of getting onto the access point. Turning radiuses are too short at these locations. Potential U turn impacts at this location. Really there's 1 1/2 access points for this site which is significantly less than we see for these type of developments. For example the Walmart that's being built in Brooklyn Center right now, I think they have 5 access points. And these type of facilities you like to separate the delivery vehicles from the patrons wanting to use the facility, Walmart. Unfortunately there's only two access points here. The delivery vehicles would have to access the west access point here. Drive through the parking lot in back of the facility. Make the deliveries and then also, and then exit through the parking lot through the east access point here. This development is potentially a 24 hour facility so there would have, there would be potentially some conflicts with those delivery vehicles on occasions. The queuing or the back up at the west access is also a concern for us in the traffic analysis. There's potentially at those peak p.m. peak times a back up of about 150 feet into the parking lot that would impact some of the parking stalls at this location here so there'd be some conflicts of people trying to get out of the facility and people trying to back out of the, back out of their stalls. With that, if the proposed development moves forward there also are some recommendations that staff would like to recommend in terms of additional infrastructure that would be needed at Powers and Trunk Highway 5. Based upon the analysis again additional left turn for westbound Highway 5 to southbound 5 would be required. That was one of MnDOT's major comments in their report to staff. Staff is also, would like to see additional left turn lane on northbound 5 to westbound 5. Or northbound Powers to westbound 5 there and then also the stacking lane increased as much as we can there. There's some conflicts about backing up on Highway 5. On Powers at the p.m. peak period where potentially traffic could not get onto the turn lanes going westbound on 5. A traffic signal would be required at Park Road and Powers Boulevard for level of service issues and also pedestrian movements. That would be a requirement as well. So with that in summary, the size of the development poses traffic challenges to our roadway systems here in this area. Staff is also concerned about some of the internal traffic movements within the site based upon our analysis. With that I'll turn it back to you Kate. Aanenson: Alright. So finally again in the staff report are the 9 findings for a PUD. I'm going to go through each of those. Again if anybody has a copy of the staff report but I'll summarize those. Again I just want to remind the Planning Commission that this is a concept PUD so because it's concept we don't have everything detailed and often, one of the choices is to ask for additional information to move it forward or decide that it's too deficient to make it work so deficiencies as laid certainly is the management and design techniques to reduce potential traffic conflicts, as the City Engineer has pointed out. Again the staff's opinion is that does not provide additional preservation of desirable site characteristics. We talked about the wetland and the creek. Then also the plan and the design of the building does not meet the standards. That would also include the parking and the sensitive to transitional areas, and also we didn't spend a lot of time but the internal pedestrian access is poor. We talked about the signal to get over there to the site off of Park Road and coming the other way on Park Road but once you get into that, there is an internal sidewalk. Maybe we can just zoom in. So internally there's a sidewalk in the middle going up to the front door but there's a sidewalk along the perimeter but it's closer to the car overhang and I think it's a little bit problematic to make it more pedestrian friendly to walk to the site so those again are some of the concerns that we have on the site itself so I think this kind of gives you a better understanding of the surrounding situation of the environmental sensitivity. So with that there's two motions that the Planning Commission has. You can approve the concept development if they somewhat you hear from the public hearing and gives the applicant some direction to go. Again it's concept which means just for everyone, they would still have to come back. They'd have to go to City Council first to get approval from the City Council. This is only a recommendation, and then if the City Council gave them a recommendation to proceed with some specific, they would have to come back with a Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 more detailed plan and have another public hearing so it would be, that'd be one choice or the Planning Commission could recommend denial of the concept based on the Findings of Fact as stated in the staff report so with that Chairman I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Aller: Thank you. Just real quick Mr. Oehme, on that parking scenario. If we were to move the lane farther west as the planning department and your office would indicate or desire, wouldn't that cause additional problems as well? Wouldn't that remove parking spaces? Oehme: Potentially the parking stalls could be, if I understand your question, can be moved over to the east side of the parking. The conflict then occurs if we move the easterly access point farther to the west. There's conflicts between those two access points then and then the westerly access point, the stacking of the turn lane there too is shrunk so there's some other issues associated with moving those two access points closer together. Aller: So it would actually create additional shortages and problems. Oehme: There could be, yep. Aller: Okay. And then the traffic turn lanes and modifications that would be required and recommended by MnDOT, were they expected to be in place or implemented at some time in the future according to the 2030 plan? Oehme: They did not really specify time periods but I mean their recommendation would be to put the turn lanes in and it will be the City's expectation that those improvements be made prior to any development of this size going in at this location. Aller: Okay. Mr. Ellsworth, you have any questions? Ellsworth: Yes, thank you Mr. Chair. I have quite a few actually, and I apologize for my voice today. I'm recovering from a cold but I'll try to speak into the microphone. Kate, you mentioned the two zoning, the IOP and the commercial, community commercial. In the summary it talks about the City Council guided the property for either. Is that the same as saying that both apply? Aanenson: Yes, both apply. That's correct. Ellsworth: Okay, that's what I thought but. Aanenson: So your determination could be the IOP is still legitimate and no reason to change it. Ellsworth: Alright. And then you talk about next steps if it was approved. That was one of my questions. When you talk about the 9 criteria in the proposal summary, those are really the 9 on page 5 and 6, even though they're not labeled that. Required general standards. Aanenson: Sorry Chairman. Actually the findings would be starting on page 16 so what you're, what they're requesting is the PUD so the findings start on page 16. Ellsworth: The findings do but the, I guess I was looking at the criteria. Evaluated against the 9 criteria. Those are what started. Aanenson: Those are the 9 criteria starting on page 16 0 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Ellsworth: Okay Aanenson: So it is the, is the preservation of desirable features. Is it more efficient use of the land. Those would be the findings. Ellsworth: Okay, thank you. And then if the improvements that we talked about just now were to be made and would have to be made prior to development going in, I presume there's no cost share with the City. That's all born by the developer or is there a cost share typically with that? Oehme: There's nothing in our capital improvement plan associated with this development. Ellsworth: Yeah. So there's nothing in the plan so therefore the City would not be putting any money into any kind of road improvements should a development like this go in, is that a fair statement? Oehme: There's nothing in our plan for any of these improvements. Ellsworth: Okay, but capital plans can be changed. Oehme: They can and it's up to the council. Ellsworth: Okay. Oehme: I should be more clear. It's up to the council if they want to change our plan, they obviously have the authority to do that but right now we have nothing planned to help offset the infrastructure costs associated with any improvements in this area, Park Road, Powers or 5. Ellsworth: Understood. Thank you. And a typical development or improvement like this, would the City or has the City in the past shared in those costs? Oehme: I'm trying to think. I'm not aware of any. Not since I've been here I don't think in the last 7 years. Ellsworth: Okay, thank you. That was one of the questions I had. We didn't talk much about water today and I noticed Terry wasn't here so I won't be, try to dig too deep but on page 15 we talk about the stated goal of the, it's to improve one waters to existing, to improve the existing water quality trend. A couple questions in that. How is the water handled today at that site? There's a couple, not culverts but outlets down at the bottom of the hill. I presume it flows over to the Lake Susan holding pond and those areas that we talked about, I don't know a couple meetings ago. The current water handling now. Storm water. Oehme: Yeah, I believe it goes to the pond up on the northwest Ellsworth: Oh, the ponds adjacent to the site. Oehme: Adjacent to the site, correct. Right there. Ellsworth: Alright. And then when you talk about increasing the quality, the water must be treated to greater than NURP standards, and I forgot what NURP stands for. NURP. It must assure that rates to and within Riley Creek do not increase. Can you talk a little bit about how they would do that or you know you got some mention about the challenges in there that would be a private management system underneath the parking lot. That's all very confusing. 10 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Oehme: They have not really proposed any storm water improvements at this time. We don't really know exactly what they're thinking. We're anticipating that when they do underground storage underneath the parking lot, there's some cisterns or chambers, grid chambers. Storm water management systems that other developments like this have put in the past. For example the Cub Foods up in Shorewood has these type of facilities. These systems and they're more maintenance. More cost to put in but, and if you have a limited site, stormwater NURP standards, those are the only systems that you really can put in to treat the water so, especially with the amount of impervious surface that's being proposed tonight. Ellsworth: Yeah. And in any development that would go in here, any big building like that would be under the same constrictions and same restrictions, correct? Oehme: Correct Ellsworth: Okay. And then we talk about the significant obstacles may preclude the development of this site as indicated in the conceptual plan. And again that, this site is zoned for, I think the maximum was 65,000 dollars into the, or 65,000 square feet under the commercial, and again I forgot what that's called. Commercial, community commercial, and that seems that would be more fitting for that size because of the issues that we're running into with larger buildings and so any site. Aanenson: What it says is, it says on one floor Ellsworth: On one floor. Aanenson: On one floor so if you went two stories that would free up parking space too so the intent was that you could go more vertical, then it would give you the exposure on Highway 5. Ellsworth: Okay. Aanenson: I don't think we talked about it but because of the elevation change, I think this might be a good one to show you. The building is sitting down. We talked about the change in grade so it's actually recessed quite a bit so you're just seeing the top of the profile because of the retaining walls as you would be driving by so one of the things we talked about in the commercial study is somebody on that site might want the visibility. A user would want that traffic that you can see the use coming. Ellsworth: Alright. That's all the questions I had for staff at this time Mr. Chair, thank you. Thank you Paul Aller: Thank you. Commissioner Doll. Doll: I'm just wondering what your opinion is regarding getting a semi through this parking lot. To me looking at this it just, I don't even know how you make a turn. It appears that there's a hard concrete or a hard bituminous on the outside perimeter and that, I don't know how it makes that first left turn and squiggles back there and then it comes down to the south and then if a car's turning into the right and a semi's coming out, you have potential for back up. I mean does this work? Oehme: I mean we have the same concern as you do. Doll: Okay. Oehme: They're, I mean they showed the, again the traffic circulation for delivery trucks again going through the west access point, up and around. Staff did put turning movement templates for larger truck traffic. 18 11 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 wheeler truck traffic and these radiuses do meet minimum standards but again it's the conflicts with parked vehicles. Those type of things that are our concern. You know it's very tight. Doll: Okay. And what is the kind of the process of Walmart or a big box coming in and looking at a site like this and you know knowing that they're going to have to adjust. It doesn't seem like they kind of took the site into consideration before this. I'm confused about the size of this thing and where it's sitting. Aanenson: Yeah I guess I'd ask, have you ask the applicant that. Doll: Okay. I have no further questions. Aller: Commissioner Thomas. Thomas: Actually I'll have questions for the applicant so I'll just wait. Aller: Commissioner Tennyson Tennyson: One question. Could you explain a little bit about the difference between what you called regular commercial in the report and community commercial. I think I've been a little stuck on that. Aanenson: Sure. There's actually, the City has a couple different zoning districts for commercial. Maybe I can go back to, sorry. So there's right now the City has, this is in the comprehensive plan so we have the central business district, which is the core of the downtown. We also have along some fringes of the core, we have business highway which is kind of the auto related part. Then we also have neighborhood commercial, and again these are zoning districts, and that's kind of where you meet your daily needs which would be also kind of more convenience, your gas stations and some other support things. There's offices in some of those too. And then the community commercial was to compliment again the downtown, and looking at the studies and saying there's not much room downtown. We're kind of looking at the redevelopment to strengthen the downtown. Again looking at if something was to, large was to go. When I say large I mean talking about a lifestyle center and it was clear during that process that we would have been in piecemeal a lot of development. There was going to be one large master plan that we provide additional commercial, which was created, a new zoning district. The community commercial zoning district. And then the lifestyle center which was specific zoning districts. Tennyson: So the application here would vary basically the type of commercial... Aanenson: Correct. Why they're asking for a PUD, the closest district would be a CC but the PUD allows you that flexibility to create the district. That's why you have to meet those 9 criteria. Are you giving a more sensitive development. Higher architecture. Those sort of things so you can get ask for really for those types of, and we have a number of commercial PUD's in the city. Tennyson: Okay, thank you. Aller: Ms. Hokkanen. Hokkanen: Yes, I have one or two questions about traffic. I was surprised when I read the report, the study about most of the traffic coming from the east to the west and was there morning traffic? Any numbers on morning traffic for the traffic going from the west to the east which is heavier in the morning with the traffic from the east to the west, with a Walmart in Eden Prairie, are they expecting people coming home from the west to stop on their way home from work or any numbers on that? 12 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Oehme: When we looked at the traffic analysis it just, the numbers just appeared that the p.m. peak hours are the most, will be the heaviest used. Typically these type of facilities when people are coming home after work, they want to stop in. Get supplies and go again so that's the type of usage that we're anticipating in the afternoon to be the most so. Hokkanen: In this letter from the Minnesota Department of Transportation they were saying how critical this morning peak period is and there's no really information on that but they're concerned about that. Oehme: Yeah and I mean they're concerned about it too but I think the p.m. peak numbers that we've looked at, it kind of trumps the a.m. Hokkanen: It does, okay. Otherwise my other questions have been answered. Aller: Commissioner Undestad. Undestad: Nothing right now. Aller: Okay. Thank you very much. At this point in time we'll ask the developer /applicant if they want to come forward. Make a presentation. Please state your name and your representation for the record please. Lisa B. Nelson: Thank you Mr. Chairman and Planning Commission members. My name is Lisa B. Nelson. I live at 205 North Lincoln in Thorpe, Wisconsin. Just over the river but I was born in Duluth. So we're excited to be here tonight to talk about this proposal and I'm also here with our entire Walmart team here in the back. The people standing back here. All from Minnesota and they all live in the area so we're all very familiar with Chanhassen and the unique amenities that you have here in Chanhassen. The high quality of life that you enjoy. We also have a divisional office in Bloomington and that's really important. We have kind of decentralized our company a little bit so where a lot of the functions that used to be in Bentonville, Arkansas they're not located right here in Bloomington for this division and I'm happy to have with us tonight Sharon Power who's the regional manager for 97 stores and she lives right next door in Eden Prairie. So Sharon's here tonight because she's going to shop this store if it's built so. And then Luke and Will and Will are engineers. Will Matzek is going to speak right after I do and I'm going to give you just a little bit of background about Walmart just because we're not here and today I spent the day talking with neighbors, talking with folks around the community, just around the intersection mainly at the Perkins and the Taco Bell and just trying to get a sense for what people thought was important and you know there seems to be some gap in knowledge about our company. Just a little bit so I just want to take, if I might, just a little bit. Give you a little bit of history. In the 1970's a lot of the retailing community started to go towards these larger discount retailing stores, so you started to see Targets and K -Marts and Walmart and in fact you know here in Minnesota is home to a lot of great retailers. Sam Walton believed that everyone should have access to low prices. Not just folks who lived in the city but people who lived in rural areas and that really was the start of his business. That's how he built his business by serving customers and letting people know that everyone should have access to low prices so they don't have to leave their community to do that. Here in Chanhassen we know people are shopping our stores because we analyze leakage information. Leakage, about 70% of our transactions are done through a check or a credit card. We have a 5 digit zip code so we kind of look to see where people are coming from and shopping at various stores in the area and we know a lot of folks in this area are shopping at Chaska, and Shakopee and Eden Prairie and what we're proposing is that we keep those dollars right here in Chanhassen. As you know Walmart is one of the most successful companies in the world. We're quite large. In Minnesota we have 75 facilities across the state. We're one of the state's largest private employers. We also have about 1,040 some suppliers in this state, which is a very, very large number of suppliers here that account for $13.4 billion dollars of merchandise and services and impact on the Minnesota economy, so that's huge, right? Let me talk a little bit about our proposal here. This store is 120,000 square feet and will provide 250 to 300 jobs. We all know in this economy it's very, very difficult 13 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 for many folks who have lost their jobs or who are looking for jobs. There'll be a lot of discussion around jobs. What kind of jobs these are? What do they pay? What kind of benefits are there? I expect there to be a lot of discussion about that and we are happy to answer any of those questions. Sharon oversees all of the stores again in this area so those store managers in Eden Prairie, etc they all funnel up to Sharon. Our average hourly wage in Minnesota for full time hourly associates is $12.15 an hour. We do offer full time and part time associates benefits. Health care benefits and we do have a match for our 401K up to 6 %. This store again 250 to 300 jobs right here in Chanhassen. And many times when we have a store that opens in a community and we are advertising for 300 positions let's say, we have 4,000 to 5,000 applicants so there are a lot of folks who are looking for these jobs and who want these jobs. We're going to talk about traffic. Willis going to, Will and his team are going to talk about traffic and I'm going to just say that in terms of traffic our team will work with the City and they have been working with the City to address a lot of the concerns that you're going to hear tonight or that have already been identified by your city staff so we are able to mitigate many of those traffic concerns. Another question we often get when we're working on sitings is regarding crime. Usually the crime statistics of our store will mirror the crime statistics of your community and based on your website you have very low crime in Chanhassen so we would expect that at the store. But you should know and we can give you some references in this regard, is that we do work with our local communities in a very, very integrated way with local police departments to make sure that we're cooperating fully in any issues or problems that there may be at the store. We have digital cameras on our property. We digitally record just about everything that takes place on our property and we cooperate fully with local law enforcement so usually if a crime is committed on our property, we're very successful at closing those cases. We're here to answer your questions tonight and we're happy to answer any of them. Many of them that you've already asked we have people itching to answer the question but more importantly we're here to listen. We want the project to be successful for your community and you know the engineers can talk about the technicalities of water. Managing water. Managing traffic. The architecture and those technicalities we will meet your code. We will do what you need us to do and we'll go beyond that when we hear from your neighbors and from your constituents so we're here to listen tonight too and hopefully we can gather some really good information from neighbors about how we can make this a project that works for everyone. We're very, very excited to come to Chanhassen. It's a very, very exciting project. We look forward to working with you so I know I was speaking really fast but I know there's a lot of people that want to speak so I'm going to turn it over to Will. Aller: Thank you. Thank you for that overview. Will? Will Matzek: Yes. Aller: What's your last name sir? Will Matzek: Matzek. Aller: Mr. Matzek. And what is your capacity with Walmart? Will Matzek: Sir, I am the engineer of record for the project and have been working with staff so far as well as the, as well as MnDOT and Carver County. Aller: Thank you. If you could, we've heard a good general overview of Walmart and I think a lot of the individuals here are very proud of their community and have participated in the past in the creation of our plan. Our 2030 plan where this community wants to be and what kind of development it wants to have and we've set the development pattern and the zonings for a reason and that was with their input and the input of a lot of engineers and individuals and a lot of discussion so I would like you to address if you could the findings in the report and the concerns that our planning division has come up with because that's where I think we need to focus the conversation tonight. 14 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Will Matzek: Certainly. I appreciate that and thank you for the opportunity to speak. We're here really to you know get input from the commission and the community. We are very, very early on in this process and really that is why we are here and wanting to get the input as this is certainly an opportunity that Walmart wants to be a part of this community and we all on the team certainly take that very seriously and just appreciate that chance and we'd like to take the input tonight and then certainly I think there's some updates that we can do from both an engineering standpoint as well as an architectural standpoint that we can do to mitigate some of the concerns from staff as well as the input we receive tonight so certainly I can touch on a number of the concerns and if there's specific questions, feel free to ask. From a traffic standpoint I know there was quite a bit of discussion about that. We have certainly been working with staff as well as MnDOT and Carver County initially on a traffic study and but yet we're still very early on in the process. Generally we have concurrence as far as the various improvements that may be necessary here for not only the Walmart store but also looking out into the future for future development in this area to account for that traffic. Actually all the way out to 2030 so we're looking beyond just this one particular store. We looked at the area as a whole in the analysis with traffic and as I had mentioned we generally have concurrence on the improvements that would be required and we'll certainly be working with the various, not only the City but also the County and MnDOT on the best way to implement the improvements to account for the new traffic generation from the store but also into the future so we have a broader vision and so we're matching up with the comprehensive plan. From an internal traffic standpoint, with truck traffic, I know that was a question. We have performed an analysis using a program called auto turn, which is a very widely used program that utilizes truck modeling software essentially to look at the footprint of the trucks that would be serving this site. The trucks that will be serving the site can certainly safely mitigate through the site and the trucks are really the life blood of any store. We need to get our merchandise to the store and so that is certainly one of our chief concerns as well as customer traffic and ensuring that there is an adequate truck path that works for both the trucks as well as customers and so we can certainly provide that information here in the future. That is, as mentioned, we're very early on and so we can provide that input as we proceed and then from an access management standpoint with the two access locations, we have modeled that within our traffic modeling software. We've worked with, as I mentioned the City, County and DOT and the access points as we have them proposed actually do function very well. They operate at a very good level of service. I do know there was some concern as far as the location and how close the easterly most access was to Powers. We think we can work with staff to find an acceptable solution to that to move that over a little bit such that it will comply with the ordinances and we think we can come up with a very suitable solution to that issue as we proceed. We can also work with staff and with the input here tonight to improve some of the site layouts and making sure that we will work with staff to improve the buffer area adjacent to the wetland. With the proposed retaining walls on site we are staying out of the wetland entirely, which is certainly positive. We're very sensitive to the natural resources but we'll take the input from staff and see if we can't improve upon that buffer to meet and/or exceed the ordinances. From a water quality standpoint, we will currently the site does discharge into that wetland area and so we will be looking to add underground treatment facilities that will improve the water quality and improve the discharge rate leaving the site so, but with the proposed development there will be an improvement from a natural resources standpoint from water quality so certainly a very positive thing from that front. I believe I've touched on a number of the items that you had outlined but if there is anything in particular in question I'd be happy to answer those. Aller: I guess have you done your own independent traffic study then? Is that the model that you're talking about? Will Matzek: Yes sir we have so, in working with both the City and County and MnDOT we did perform a traffic study and generally the conclusions, they didn't teach me this in engineering school, sorry. But generally you know we concur and so now it's a matter of working through the details of how you implement these types of solutions and the real design of it. You know in concept we all believe we're on the same page but we need to take it a step further as we proceed. 15 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Aller: When you say you're on the same page, you agree with MnDOT and the engineering department that these extra turn lanes are needed and the requirement for the, for instance the stacking lane to move farther west? Will Matzek: Yeah, we generally, like I said have concurrence on these things. Now we need to actually get into the real design. We wanted to get the input from commission as well as the community here before we proceed too far. That was what you know we want the opportunity to make sure that we're hearing concerns and that we can address everybody as best we can. Aller: Yeah and I'll go ahead and ask Commissioner Ellsworth's next question which is, is it your intention to pay for the interchanges or to request funds from the City? Will Matzek: Our intention is to mitigate concerns as best we can and we'll work through that as we proceed. You know the real design has not been done yet so we'd like the opportunity to work with staff on the real design as well as the County and MnDOT to ensure that we have a good design that works and work through those responsibilities but normally you know we're very early on so we want to cooperate with all the agencies to ensure we're meeting concerns there. Undestad: One question? Just a quick question Aller: Commissioner Undestad. Undestad: What's the hard surface coverage on the way you have this laid out right here? Will Matzek: I believe it's approximately 9 acres. Undestad: No, but the total percentage of hard surface versus the normal. Will Matzek: Versus the site. I believe. Aanenson: It does meet the requirement. It's 70% and you do meet that Will Matzek: I believe that's correct, yes. Aller: Any other questions at this time? Commissioner Ellsworth. Ellsworth: Thank you Mr. Chair. Will, Mr. Matzek. I guess I just have the basic question, if Walmart's coming in, you know I'd bring my very best for this. It seems like there's so many deficiencies in this plan and so many things pointed out by staff and I'm uncomfortable with you standing there saying well, you know we're going to work with staff and we'll work some of this stuff out and so and it's like well, well why didn't you do that and then come to us and then we'd be in a lot different position and the audience might be in a lot different position as well but now there's all kinds of these unknowns, at least in my opinion. Unknowns about where this might go and how this might turn out and when we talk about you know moving the wall or making this different or getting further away for a larger buffer and so on, all that tells me is that the area's going to shrink and is that something Walmart is willing to do to actually shrink this store to meet some of those requirements that you talked about meeting? Will Matzek: As far as you know we mentioned we are early on but you know we have met with staff and with the staff report, this was the first formal comments that we had received. As with any ordinances there can be different interpretations on how you read it and you know our intent is to meet the ordinances. Staff 16 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 has outlined a number of concerns and we're open to working with staff. We very much are. We want to be part of the community and mentioned this is you know a conceptual PUD so we are early on and I think that is, it was my understanding of the intent of the meeting and so certainly there are ways to improve and we're open to that and so I know that's not necessarily the answer you want to hear but we're open to hearing this feedback and dialogue and making some modifications and presenting it again if that's something that you would like to see. We're here to work with the community really. Aller: Okay. And just very respectfully I think to Commissioner Ellsworth's point is very well taken. What you're asking for is not to meet conditions but actually to go around certain zoning conditions by requesting a PUD which is why I was asking about the 2030 plan. In our 2030 plan this type of arrangement as outlined in your concept is not acceptable so the question is why should we allow you to modify or ask us to modify our zoning requirements to allow Walmart to come in and build? Develop. Will Matzek: Sure. Okay, well I think that from a number of standpoints we are in line with the comprehensive plan as far as the services that this store would provide and I think that a number of those items really truly are met and the intent is met I think by the comprehensive plan. I think maybe the bigger issue that I'm hearing is maybe the size of the store. I will say that this is actually one of the smaller footprints that Walmart does do. I think a lot of folks are used to you know a 200,000 square foot type building. Walmart has you know reduced that size for this type of a site and that it is smaller and really I think as well, I think the retail environment is a little bit different now than maybe perhaps when the comprehensive plan was set. You know the square footage, I know there's a limit on that and I recognize that we do exceed that but at the same time I think that you know with the cooperation between the Walmart team and certainly staff that we can find suitable ways to solve these issues to make it a worthwhile development at this location. Aller: Okay, thank you. Anything else? Ellsworth: No thank you. Aller: Commissioner Doll. Ellsworth: Thank you Mr. Matzek. Will Matzek: Thank you. Doll: I'm just wondering. Will Matzek: Oh I'm sorry, I should say too that Jackie Cook -Haxby our architect is also here too to speak and to answer any questions as well before we move on... Doll: Why this site? Why doesn't Walmart. Will Matzek: I think that Mr. Mike Sims with MidAmerica Real Estate will be a person that can answer this particular question. Doll: Okay. I just want to be on record that you're kind of putting us in a hard position here for what we're being asked to determine here with what we got on paper here. It doesn't meet the requirements that were asked. I just don't understand it. It seems kind of a like a waste of time. Mike Sims: Maybe that'll just rest on there. I won't touch it. I, good evening. I'm Mike Sims. I'm with MidAmerican Real Estate. I'm the broker for Walmart here in Minnesota. 17 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Aller: Thank you Mr. Sims Mike Sims: As it relates to your question specifically why this site, we would tell you that in this corridor on the north side of 5 there are not parcels that can accommodate a box of this size so from a pure looking in the Chanhassen trade area, this is the best site for our intended use. I looked at this site 5 years ago for Lowe's. I also do the Lowe's work. At that time for 150,000 foot store and any retailer that's looking to locate in Chanhassen would tell you that this is you know the best site available for retail. If I can answer any other questions as it relates to the retail aspect. Thank you. Aller: Thank you Mr. Sims. Any other questions? Another representative? Lisa B. Nelson: I think that will conclude our presentation for right now unless you have other questions of us. We do have the architect here. We do have our traffic engineer and Will and I can ask any questions about the company. I can answer them. You know I know you're going to get a lot of feedback from the public but we are here. There is one site that you can go to, www.walmartfacts.com It is audited and it has all of our corporate facts on that website. It will have all the information from Minnesota as well so you can refer to that. The one thing that you will miss without Jackie coming up here to do any kind of architectural presentation is our commitment to sustainability. This store will be absolutely sustainable in terms of the design elements that go into the actual store. You'll see the daylight harvesting, which is taking in the natural light and having light fixtures that adjust, etc. There'll be a lot of elements in this store that you'll be really proud of as a community so just wanted to, there's a lot there to talk about if you're interested. Aller: Well I just want to make it clear that it wouldn't be on us to miss her presentation. We'd like to hear anything that you have to say that will educate our community on why Walmart is wanting to come into Chanhassen and what they would do for our community. Lisa B. Nelson: And as Will stated, we looked at this meeting really as very preliminary where we're looking at a concept here and there's still a lot of room for us to make changes to this plan. We had a meeting before this and Will was outlining some of the very changes that the City Engineer recommended so there's, and as we hear you know like I said, there's a lot of technical things. We can meet any of your codes. We can meet your, what you need us to do technically but hearing from neighbors and hearing the antidotal how traffic really moves. How people really are going to drive through there. How people want to shop. What they want to experience. Those are things we want to hear too so it's a two way conversation. We don't want to just come in here and say this is our plan and it's this or nothing. We're coming in and saying we want to have a two way conversation with you and we are very flexible. A lot of the, we have a lot of flexibility at Walmart and we definitely want to be a good company to work with. Aller: Understanding that is there anybody else from Walmart you'd like to have come up and speak. Thank you. Lisa B. Nelson: Jackie, want to talk about your. Jackie Cook - Haxby: I try to avoid the microphone whenever possible. I'm Jackie Cook - Haxby. I'm with SAIC and I actually live right around the corner on Green Ridge Drive. Also in Eden Prairie but this is my shopping area so I shop all the stores that are in this area. The architecture. I think maybe. Aanenson: Is this okay? Jackie Cook - Haxby: One of the side shots with the back shots maybe. Yeah, that'll work. We did indeed read your ordinance and one of the reasons that we did not put, or I did not direct my staff to put any windows 18 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 on the sides and the back in this bottom elevation is that number one, it's significantly below grade. Number two, those are all warehouse functions or cooler /freezer functions. As a matter of fact the pop out on the bottom right hand corner that you can see that has a little lighter brick inbetween some columns actually is the compressor unit for the refrigeration and we tried to locate those more towards the areas that are not going to be occupied by anyone else. So in reading your code I noticed that there was a comment in there that when the functions of the building don't allow transparency or windows, entrances, doors, that type of thing, there were a possibility of some other exceptions including architectural features. It being more or less hidden by the shrubbery that's going to be, or landscaping that's going to be right on Highway 5, I debated putting anything on that side. It's not that I can't. It's not that I won't. I just didn't notice that it would, in viewing it and driving it I didn't think it was going to be viewable so that's why it's not there. Talking a little bit about the materials of the building. Being from this area of course I have surveyed the areas. I do note that Target is painted block. It also has some non - transparent windows on it. It has a single entrance. Some of the newer buildings, like the Office Max I think it is and a few of the others do have more of a brick type atmosphere and we've tried to use a little bit of all the materials. We are indicating that the primary main wall construction is going to be a pre -cast and it is a textured pre - colored, pre -cast product. We have included additional windows. Some of them non - transparent on the front. We have used some quick brick, which is a larger brick element and made out of concrete but fired like brick to provide accents around the building. We've also included a second wall sign on the back to add a little more interest to the back side of the building. Again realizing that most of it is not going to be visible because you're going to be zooming by there. I know I do at about 60 miles an hour if the stop light's green, and the trees are up so. As to the sustainability of the building, at least to briefly address that. One thing that we're doing is one of the most sustainable features according to the education is re -using a site that has already been vacant for some time. Yes, we're taking down the existing building. The existing building was not something that we could convert to a retail store so we have to take it down but we are re -using a site that is already developed. Therefore we're not going out and taking a green field site. We're not destroying somebody's crop land. We're not taking part of the Arboretum. We're staying in a site that's already developed. We have the white roof which is reflective and will create less of a heat island effect. We have the sky lights, and there are a lot of them. There's probably um, maybe 100 or better sky lights on top of this building that will be tied in to the lights inside the building with a sensor and so when it's bright daylight out, the lights inside the building go way down. When it's evening or an overcast day, the lights come up. The heat off the refrigeration units is recycled so that it goes into heating all the water. We have of course all the low BOC refrigerants and that type of thing. The low water usage toilets and sinks. Any number of things. We use fly ash in the concrete. These are all features that are fairly standard and again at walmartfacts.com you can see a light of our sustainable things. The other thing we do is we are very heavy into the recycling. Not only during the, while the store is in use but when we're building it so we try very hard not to take anything to the dump. We have a recycling program during construction and that material is all recycled that comes off the building that we don't use to build it. Also during, while the store is in operation we use two types of recycling. We have the cardboard and paper recycling which is bound up and it is picked up and then we also have now gone to with the stores that have grocery in it, we have the recycling of all the green goods and that type of thing that can't be sold or are spoiled and so those are recycled also. Any questions? Aller: Commissioners? Okay, thank you. Appreciate your time. Lisa B. Nelson: The one thing that we did not mention is our community involvement and I just want to mention that because it's significant in Minnesota. In the communities that we call home, our stores are stores of the community. They give back to local organizations. You could call any of our stores to find out and Sharon could provide to us, if you were interested in that information, what kinds of organizations in the communities that where we have stores, where we are investing our dollars. Our charitable dollars. In Minnesota last year we gave $14.5 million dollars back to the communities that we call home and we do that mainly to local organizations, community based organizations. Little League teams, PTO's, fire departments, police departments, any kind of civic type of organization that we could support that would make our 19 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 connection with the community more real. We're very, very interested in that. And when Jackie was talking about the things that we recycle out of our stores, we have a very, very comprehensive sustainability, a very proactive sustainability plan inside our stores. We have some very, very hefty sustainability goals at Walmart that we're going to meet to create zero waste, to be 100% supplied by renewable energy and lastly to help sell sustainable products to all of our customers so you know for example last year we had a goal to sell 100 million CFL's to our customers and we thought well could we do this in one year? Could we sell 100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs and we did. We did it by October 1S We made some key changes in the area of laundry detergent, working with our suppliers. Telling them we don't want it watered down anymore. We want it concentrated. It costs less fuel. Takes up less space. It's easier for folks to carry. And now that change has gone across the sector. Across the retail sector. It's difficult to find watered down laundry detergent because we asked our suppliers to work with us on becoming more sustainable. So I think having a Walmart in your community will do a lot of things. It will add tax value. It will add to your, it will help you create some values so that you can afford to do the things that your community wants to do. I think it will bring that low price leadership that your neighbors need and want. They're already shopping at a Walmart somewhere in this area. I think the job creation is significant. 250 to 300 jobs is very, very significant and I think the community investment that we will make as a company and what we will do to give back to Chanhassen will be amazing and you will be impressed by it so we're here to answer questions but we're here to listen too so I'm going to stop talking. Thank you very much. Aller: Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Okay, at this point in time I'm going to, if we're going to have side conversations please take them out in the hall. At this point in time we're going to open up the hearing for public hearing, which means public comment. Please take turns. Come up to the podium. We're going to try to limit the statements to 3 minutes and hopefully we won't be repeating comments. If you agree with someone and they've said it all then maybe it's better that we just go ahead and continue but I do not want that to be taken as an intent to stop you from coming forward and giving any information or comment on this matter that you feel that you would like to so, with that I'm going to open the public hearing. Scott Hippen: May I step forward? Aller: Please. Scott Hippen: My name is Scott Hippen, 7017 Cheyenne Trail. I am against Walmart moving into 1000 Park Road. I'm also the person who clapped when the representatives of Walmart concluded their reactions because I believe that they deserve our respect. I appreciate their interest in our community. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, City Engineer, Madam Director of Community Development and representatives of Walmart. The first page of the report, last sentence says a PUD, planned unit development must be consistent with the City's comprehensive plan, and I believe that is taken from the Chanhassen City Code and when you read the Chanhassen City Code you will see that primary goal of the code of a comprehensive plan. The primary goal of the Chanhassen comprehensive plan is to contain growth of Chanhassen with the support of Chanhassen residents. Residents of Chanhassen do we have support for this motion to move Walmart into 1000 Park Road? I believe we don't. Thank you. It is according to the Municipal Land Development Act of Minnesota that requires municipalities to use it's comprehensive plan as a guideline so I ask that the commissioners take that into consideration and I will point out page I believe 19. Sorry, page 17 of the report. On number 5 asks, is the development consistent with the comprehensive plan and I would say that it is not because you do not have the support of Chanhassen residents and that we have the power, the commission and the residents of Chanhassen to control the growth of our community and I would ask that the board, I'm sorry. The commission make a recommendation to City Council to put a moratorium on big box store development in Chanhassen until we have a chance to vet out what part of our community we would like to have a big box store in so that we can be in control. So that we're no longer wasting our time with these, as Mr. Doll said, putting us, a big box store putting us into a difficult position. Would also like to take you to page 8, 9, pages 8, 9 and 10. These numbers on this chart were developed oh 20 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 about a foot of snow ago in February of 2011 and the week of the Monday the 7 It was the coldest week in Chanhassen for our winter last year. These numbers are not reliable for determining the traffic impact. These numbers ignore peak traffic seasons and they ignore the a.m. hours. And they look like they're only going one direction which is also in the direction of the big box store parking lot. It ignores how the traffic is going to flow out. 100% of the traffic comes out of the traffic, of Walmart and it goes either north or south on Powers Boulevard. The impact analysis also ignores the impact on Auburn Road, the businesses on Park Road, on Lake Road. Will, the gentleman from Walmart said that trucks are their life line to successful business. Well Walmart would be cutting off the life line to other businesses on Park Road. Making it difficult for them to have successful commerce. They will be harassed by the additional traffic. Also we have a soccer field just adjacent to the proposed property. Chanhassen Athletic Association I'm sure is not happy about sharing it's space with the traffic impact of Walmart. I ask that the commission deny Walmart it's request for a planned unit development on the basis that it is inconsistent with our comprehensive plan. It does not have the support of Chanhassen residents. And I thank Walmart again for coming in here and I ask everyone to remain respectful of them as well as to the commission and thank you for your time. Aller: Thank you. Sarah Thomas: Mr. Chair, Planning Commission members, thank you. My name is Sarah Thomas. I live at 2555 Longacres Drive with my husband and 4 children who wanted to come but we figured it'd be a late night and in case you're not sure there are two other full rooms with people here. I'm asking for you, on behalf of myself and our family to request, we're asking for you to deny this request. I have learned through my studies that the downtown area per the comp plan was approved to be guided to allow for some retail, however not to the degree that is being proposed. Quite honestly I am shocked that this proposal is in front of us. I completely understand that it's concept and that Walmart doesn't want to put the money towards all the specifics of a plan but I feel that there are too many deviations in what we've seen as was stated to come forward with grounds for you to approve something of this nature this evening. I'm not hearing words from Walmart or the staff's review that Walmart has gone above and beyond the code or that they're exceeding the ordinance. If anything I'm hearing the staff as well as Walmart, well Walmart noting that they will try to meet the code but staff saying that there are concerns and challenges and that what's being proposed is detrimental and doesn't meet the code. I see few if any design features that are very technological such as rain gardens, French drainage systems, permeable pavement, things that if Walmart wanted to give a benefit to the city I think should be part of their concept plan. If approved I'm wondering what would happen when the big box leaves. I was recently in St. Cloud and I saw that the Walmart and Sam's Club is vacant because they built bigger stores closer to the freeway so I didn't quite understand the broker's comments about why this site. It sounded to me like he was saying this site was too small for a Lowe's and too small for other big box retailers. His comments were not clear to me. I would also like to hand something out, Paul if you wouldn't mind that it's one item that really hasn't been touched on tonight. I'll go quickly but this information that I have is in relation to the taxes. What you'll see in the handout is some tax information. The value is slightly increased for the new Walmart to mirror the per square foot value of the Target in Chanhassen so the chart is going to outline the 2011 property taxes generated by a currently office warehouse which is the $208,295. Please note that, do you have enough? Aanenson: Yeah, we're going to put it up there. Sarah Thomas: Okay. Please note that due to fiscal disparities in the statewide commercial industrial tax the total amount, excuse me, annual amount that the City of Chanhassen received in 2011 is only $18,062. The comparison values on nearby Walmart's should be more than reasonable for the purposes of reviewing this tonight. Walmart is proposing to tear down the current building which is the $3.5 million dollar value and construct anew Walmart. After construction the total taxes would be estimated to $325,871. City taxes being $28,269. If you're following the math the important point is that the difference between what is there now and what Walmart is proposing is $10,207. This figure should negate the benefits that Walmart stated 21 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 that they will bring to town. I believe there are many strains that Walmart's coming to town would bring in relation to traffic and the environment as well as police protection which was brought up by Walmart. I didn't see that information in the staff report but I do believe that there will be increased crime, whether that be petty theft, I'm not sure but we know that it just comes with the people. The Villager article that I recently read stated that the Eden Prairie Walmart generates $380,000 in property taxes a year. Unfortunately the general public doesn't understand the way that our tax system works. Only $38,000 of this money went to the City of Eden Prairie. Unfortunately I realize it's hard to believe but it's our current tax system in Minnesota and the metro area and that is what it is. So I'd like you to be advised and the public to know that those who were thinking that Walmart was beneficial because of taxes, $10,000 just doesn't seem like we should roll out the red carpet and allow all of these deviations to come into our city. I know a lot of other people want to speak. I had a lot more that I wanted to say but I am quite pleased with staff's review of the proposal. I guess one other thing was in relation to the jobs and I just question how many of those jobs will be Chanhassen residents. $12.00 an hour jobs don't seem tome to behead of household type jobs. I know where kids need jobs but those kids can drive to Carver or wherever Walmart wants to go. I know Carver was proposed at one point in time in Carver. I'm not sure why that fell apart but I don't think there are that many people in Chanhassen that would view that to be that favorable to allow it in this location and again to allow that number of deviations so I thank you very much for your time and good luck with your decision. Tim Bloudek: Good evening. My name is Tim Bloudek. I live at 1171 Homestead Lane. I'm a 25 year resident of Chanhassen. I am also against the rezoning to allow Walmart to access to our city in the business climate. You know I don't have a lot of facts and figures. I just have some opinions. Some observations and Walmart said they're here to listen, as I assume you are. You know I don't believe that we need what Walmart has to offer. It is certainly a duplication of supply chain. We have many of the services that we need in duplicate and triplicate and more in certain cases. You know traffic has been discussed. I believe that's an issue. You know I just don't believe that there's any real benefit in the quality of life that Walmart would bring. I am happy to be in the top, one of the top 10 cities in the United States. We did it without Walmart. I think we'll be. I think we'll be fine you know as we go forward. It certainly doesn't fit with my view of what the community needs or wants in a retail district. I just don't believe Walmart needs to be, Chanhassen needs to be one of the thousands of locations that Walmart has worldwide. I do admire Walmart in their logistic prowess. Their ability to generate profit for their shareholders. I commend them for the sustainability efforts. They do a very fine job in that area and you know I commend them for their charitable efforts. For me I just don't want what they have to offer in our city and I would ask Walmart to not waste our time or their time and resources in pursuing the city of Chanhassen site. Thank you. Ellis Thomas: My name is Ellis Thomas. I live at 406 West 76 Street. I've been a member of this community since 1967 when you drove in from the east, there was a population that said Chanhassen, 240 so there's been some changes that's taken place in my tenure in this community. One of the disadvantages of being the fourth speaker is that many of the first 3 speakers said what I had in my mind when I thought when I was going to come up here so my, I don't have a lot of statistics. Mine is more or less an emotional plea and that is I'm proud of this community the way it is. I'd like to commend you, the council, the mayor, although I don't see him. I'd like to commend the staff for developing a community that I can be proud of and that I can be proud to have people come and visit. I go to other communities and I said boy are they missing it and I won't miss those, I won't mention those names because I don't want to offend anybody but I'm proud of this community and like the gentleman, I believe Tim was his name said, you know we live in a community that's within the top 10 of the United States and we got here without Walmart. And I see, I've heard horror stories. I won't mention them. You know it's hearsay but I hear a lot of mom and pop outfits going belly up when Walmart comes into the community and I sort of thing Chanhassen has a lot of mom and pop type outfits. You take a look at an organization like Target. Okay, I go down to Target. If you go to Target you'll probably see me, but I know those people down there. It's just a friendly environment. It's a large communication but it's friendly and you can pretty well get what you want. If you don't, why there's other places you can go. Cub is a nice store. Byerly's. There's all, Ace Hardware. My goodness those people 22 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 have been in business for years and years and years and you know if you want to go to some other place that sells something cheaper, go do it. Of course you're going to end up spending money on the gas to get there so you've got the convenience of these stores. Please, don't bring in Walmart. Those guys they just come into a community and we're not going to be in the top 10 anymore if they're here. That's my feeling. Brad Karels: Brad Karels, 8105 Dakota Lane. 5 year resident of Chanhassen. I'd like to thank the commission, the folks from Walmart and mostly I'd like to thank everyone from the community who showed up. Everyone in the other room. Thanks for coming out. I know we're short on time. I'll try to keep this brief and stay on point. I'd like to speak specifically to the environmental impact of the site, specifically to one issue that was not addressed that has very little to do with zoning or code or anything else and that's non point source water pollution, which in some people's opinion is the leading cause of water pollution in the United States. I don't want to read but I want to stay on point and make sure I cover all my points. I apologize. One single acre of impermeable surface can generate at most 25,000 gallons of runoff during a 1 inch storm, and here we're looking at about 9 acres of impermeable surface if I read that correctly. Runoff from these impermeable surfaces leads to erosion, flooding and the flow pollutants such as oil, fertilizer, pesticides and heavy metals into our waterways. We have Riley Creek running through the property and we're adjacent to a wetland. There's some planned improvements but there's no way to control non point source water pollution. The United States Institute of Traffic Engineers determined that on average, an average sized Walmart attracts 850 automobiles per hour and most of them are open 24 hours a day so that's 850 hourly opportunities for cars to leave pollutants behind on the impermeable surface to be washed into our waterways long after they've departed and I very much doubt that a little retaining wall 15 feet from the wetlands going to do much good. There's also solid waste concerns. Discarded food wrappers, cups, bits of plastic, and the like all easily carried by wind across their parking lot directly into the creek, the surrounding community, onto the highway and into other parts and recreational areas and there's not much again the organization can do about that kind of pollution entering our community. The proposed occupant has a long history of environmental violations, many which directly related to the Clean Water Act. They've paid millions in fines and civil penalties for their reckless practices and even though they pay the damage is already done and now they could be doing that damage here and I would really prefer to see that not happen. In Connecticut they were heavily fined for threatening rivers and streams with chemical pollution and their then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal noted that Walmart's environmental record seems as low as their prices. He went on to say that in that state they had systematic repeated violations across the state. In summary our hope is that we will not see any of this blatant disregard for the environment here. As a community we seek assurances from this body that every aspect of the local ecosystem will be considered and that those resources, if they cannot be guaranteed protection, that this rezoning not be recommended to the City Council. Thank you. Todd Neils: Good evening. My name is Todd Neils and I'm a 30 year resident of Chanhassen, having grown up with it and eventually moving my family back so I could raise them in the town in which I grew up in. I've had the opportunity to address both Park and Rec Commission as well as City Council on a number of different issues over the years but this is my first time with the Planning Commission and I appreciate your time. I'm here tonight to talk about the assumed tax benefit of big box stores such as Walmart is supposed to bring. I heard the Mayor on Channel 5 and he was talking about, about $380,000 in additional tax revenue and hundreds of jobs that this big box store will provide. I'd like to briefly address 3 points. First, according to public record the parcel of land which Walmart wants to occupy paid $208,394 in property taxes in 2011. This is a 5.4% increase over 2010 and really only means a true economic benefit is $171,606. Second, the Civic Economics Group published a study commissioned by the Andersonville Development Corporation in October, 2004. This study shows that locally owned businesses generates 70% locally, more local economic impact per square foot than big box retailers. This group analyzed locally owned restaurants, retail stores, and service providers on Chicago's north side and compared them to national big box retailers competing in the same category. The bottom line of the study is that for every $100 spent on independent retailers in our community it creates $68 in additional local activity while spending the same $100 at that big box retailer 23 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 only provides $43. This is a 36% less in overall economic impact on the local community. Another study for the Institute for Local Self Reliance and Friends of Mid -Coast Maine in September showed that 3 times as much money stays in the local economy when you buys goods and services from locally owned businesses. This survey found that businesses with combined sales of $5.7 million dollars in 2002 spent 44.6% with the surrounding two counties with an additional 8.7% spent within the state. This is 53.3% spent when shopping locally. The analysis estimates that a national big box retailer operating would return only 14.1% of it's local economy in the form mostly of payroll. The rest leaves the state flowing to out of state suppliers or back to corporate headquarters. My third and final point is the creation of jobs. The Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University in Chicago commissioned in December, 2009 shows that opening of a Walmart on the west side of Chicago in 2006 led to the closure of one - quarter of the businesses within a 4 mile radius. They tracked 306 businesses. Checking their status before Walmart opened and 1 to 2 years after. By the second year 82 of those businesses had closed locally. Businesses within close proximity had a 40% chance of closing. Sales tax and unemployment data provided by the State of Illinois for Walmart zipcode and surrounding zipcodes confirmed that the overall sales and employment in the neighborhood did not increase, but actually dipped from trend line. They noted there is no evidence that Walmart sparked any significant net growth in economic activity or employment in the area. A second study by the Review of Economics and Statistics in February, 2005 shows that job creation is a myth. This study examines the impact of arrival of a Walmart store on retail and wholesale unemployment. Or employment, pardon me. It looks at 1,749 counties that added a Walmart between 1977 and 1998. It finds that Walmart's arrival, while boosting employment by 100 jobs in the first year, far less than 200 to 400 jobs the company says it's stores create because it's arrival causes existing retailers to downsize and lay off employees. With the potential additional of $171,606 in additional income, taking into account additional potential police calls, traffic, congestion, coupled with loss of local retail, the numbers for this big box retailers just don't add up. Thank you. Annie Fisher: My name is Annie Fisher. I've lived in Chanhassen nearly 25 years. I currently reside at 1321 Lake Drive West which is one block directly south of Park Road where this new Walmart is proposed to go in. I don't have many facts like other people. I do have a lot of concerns when I leave these things. My first concern is just the general traffic. We've touched on that. I drive at that intersection in and out every single day. It's a busy intersection and furthermore I see a lot of families, pedestrians, bike riders going on those streets. They're not safe right now as it is. We don't need that further traffic to add to that. Secondly I don't need to go into detail on the local business competition. It won't provide jobs. We know that. My next concern is the heighten crime rate. With this being a 24 hour development I don't feel comfortable living two blocks away from something that's open 24 hours, and that's, Walmart has a proven higher crime rate than Target in terms of incidents that involve the police. Not to mention the property values. I don't feel comfortable living there. Again it's going to drive crime, traffic. It's not good for our property. What I'd like to state is that I don't think Walmart offers anything that our community doesn't already provide and if we do need something Walmart has, I'm fine sacrificing 10 minutes to go down the road to Eden Prairie than to sacrifice the safety of our community. Again I don't have many facts but the few terms I've heard thrown around tonight are things like it does not meet requirements, there are many deficiencies, or it meets minimum standards and I'm proud to live in this community and I don't think we got in the top 10 by meeting minimum standards so with that. Bill Fisher: My name is Bill Fisher. I live at 1321 Lake Drive West, Apartment 225. I'm also a board member of the Powers Ridge Homeowners Association. That was my wife. Thank you board members. Thank you Walmart. Thank you community for coming out. I also work for a local business, Lakewinds. Our store is probably about a quarter of the size one proposed and we have four access points. I am a truck driver for the store. That's my biggest concern, in and out. I don't think, I think your deficiencies have laid out the access points to handle the type of traffic. It's something we don't need. It doesn't fit. I think what they won't tell you in the plan is they want to be on the eye of the competition because that site works for them because they can see the competition across the street. I can see more vertical development on that corner. Something with a condo and some restaurants and you know a couple shops there but they want to be 24 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 in sight of the competition you know. I don't think your engineers have addressed not having enough access points. Why don't you have a, pick a site where you can have 6 or 7 entry points and a separate truck way like most of the other stores in the area have. I think the community's come out in force and I think we'll say thank you but no thank you to Walmart. Thank you for your time. David Kressler: My name is David Kressler. I live at 1750 Valley Ridge Trail North. I moved with my family here in 1997. Moved back to the East Coast for a year and a half and moved by family back here again in 2003. We sell for less always. I know you know that slogan. It's Walmart's. It's seen on trucks and every highway across the country. It's a business model that succeeds for the company but it can destroy communities. How does Walmart sell for less always? Well one is, one way is that they have restrictive and unforgiving supplier relationships. They force lower prices from vendors in order to remain in that partnership. They control events of the supply chain such as delivery dates and requirements to their benefit and to their partner's disadvantage. I would recommend that you check out the scene from Walmart, the high cost of low price where the Walmart farming partner loses a good portion of his crop and profit because of Walmart's control over scheduled pick up, delivery and inspection dates. A second way is hiring part time, low wage workers. There's little in the way of affordable benefits for these people and there's little or no hope of advancement for them. There are other pure business advantages such as volume contracts, worldwide partner basis and the ability to use significant loss leader practices that are part of many different businesses, but the other ones are extremely important to our community. What does selling for less always bring about? Well the outcome that I'm most concerned about, living here in Chanhassen is the well documented assault on small local businesses. Bicycle and toy stores, small hardware stores, pharmacies, hair salons, party supply outlets, tire and auto supplies, just to name a few. They can all be negatively affected and possibly put out of business. And if you hadn't noticed all of these types of businesses exist here in Chanhassen. Finally there's a negative effect on service providers such as lawyers and accountants that are a part of the small business community. Walmart does not use those people. Our business, our local businesses do. I'm not against Walmart's right to exist and even to succeed but I do not support their business model and I do not believe that Walmart is a good match for the city of Chanhassen. I firmly believe that there are other better options that will allow Chanhassen to grow while maintaining the characteristics that have repeatedly placed it among the best places to live in America. I hope the planning committee will recommend against Walmart's proposed development in Chanhassen. Elizabeth Kressler: Good evening, my name is Elizabeth Kressler. I live at 1750 Valley Ridge Trail North here in Chanhassen. I'm also representing the 1,030 people that signed our petition on change.org. I have a sample for council of 840 signatures that you can look at. The majority of them are Chanhassen residents. Everything that everybody has said, while I came up here to say a lot of what everybody already has said but I also invite you to look at big box retail. It is a site with many, many reports on it and one of them, Mr. Neils had referenced a report that was very recent and it involved closures of stores and loss of jobs and real estate and it's just not recent that this has been happening. In Iowa, the University of Iowa conducted a study and between 1983 and 1993 there was 7,326 Iowa businesses that went under because of Walmart. 555 grocery stores, 291 apparel stores, and 298 hardware stores, all in the state of Iowa. All due to the fact that Walmart moved in to their small town. I'd like you again to take a look at those, at that site and the majority of those reports I would say 98% of them are all based on what happens when Walmart comes in. Thank you very much. Christine Callahan: Hi, I'm Christine Callahan. I live at 8595 Drake Court in Chanhassen. We built our house in 1994 so I've been here for a good deal of the growth. I'm not going to talk about Walmart so you can rest easy. I would like to address the Planning Commission and your role in planning. This site as we've already talked about is not zoned for what Walmart wants to do. What Lowe's might want to do. What Home Depot might want to do so I would draw your attention to the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan which I believe guide the planning decisions. The first one is to develop and maintain the City's land use plan so it is utilized as a fundamental tool for directing the community's growth, and I think that's why 25 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 you have 3 rooms full of people tonight because people want to participate in the City's direction and growth. Another goal is Chanhassen will continue to encourage the location of commercial uses in the central business district. Commercial development outside the central business district and it's fringe should complement the central business district. Clearly this sort of business won't complement the downtown. The City will maintain a comprehensive and up to date set of ordinances to ensure that development is consistent with the plan while resulting in high quality, sensitively designed projects. So this is part of our comprehensive plan. In 2008 the City spent a lot of money, a lot of time planning a regional mall out by Highway 212 on Powers. This is a question to the Planning Commission. Has anyone studied the impact of this project on that project? Aanenson: Yes. That's why the two places were guided. There is no additional property in the downtown, anywhere guided for this type of use in the city right now. Christine Callahan: Okay. Aanenson: There is no other site for them to go in the city that's got the current zoning in place. The downtown, the regional commercial district says it has to be master planned. The intent is that to be a unified development so it's again a completely different draw. Different types of uses. I think when we had the open houses it was clear from the residents what their expectations were. That it not be big box users. That it be a truly lifestyle center with entertainment component mix so that's why additional commercial was attached to the downtown core. This community commercial district. Christine Callahan: Okay. I appreciate your answer and I think that it also points to my comment that then this isn't the place for a big box retail. That the citizens of Chanhassen have laid out a plan that doesn't include this kind of business, whether it's Walmart or anyone else and I think that if we're not going to end up like, sorry for the reference, Apple Valley or Roseville, cities that don't have a downtown. They have sort of a sprawling business district that isn't confined to one pedestrian friendly area. I think we need to keep the zoning the way it is. Thank you. Colleen Cannon: Good evening. Aller: Good evening. Colleen Cannon: My name is Colleen Cannon. I live at 8110 Marsh Drive and I've been a Chanhassen resident for 15 years. Just two quick things. I wanted to call the committee's attention, there are a lot of opinions here tonight and I have mine as well but I just thought you might be able to use a little more data so I wanted to call your attention to a study that was done by Kenneth Stone, Professor of Economics at Iowa State University and it's entitled the Economic Impact of Walmart Supercenters on Existing Businesses in Mississippi, and just to take a couple of seconds to read a couple of the conclusions there. First, Walmart Supercenters in Mississippi captured most of their food sales from existing food stores in the host county and existing businesses at the end of 5 years lost about 20% of their generated income. Furniture stores in host county experienced an increase in sales for the first 3 years but declined in years 4 and 5. Building material stores in host counties experienced average losses of 8% to 15% for the first 5 years after the opening of a superstore. The Walmart supercenters capture substantial amounts of miscellaneous retail trade from host counties ranging up to 12% by the fifth year, etcetera. You get the idea so I just thought you might want to factor some of that in because they're going to be taking business from businesses that I think we all appreciate and really enjoy like Byerly's. I'm originally from New York. I brought my parents here. They'd never seen anything like Byerly's. You wouldn't believe the expressions on their faces. I think it's a real, it's something that we should be proud of having in Chanhassen so that's the first thing I want to say. Second thing I would just want to say real quick is that we have an exchange student from China with us this year and I was so proud to be able to bring him tonight to show him the democratic process in action so thank you so much. 26 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Dave Enright: My name is Dave Enright, 795 Ponderosa Drive. Just got a very quick comment I guess. We started the planning session mentioning and talking a lot about the limited physical area of this site and I'm now, finally I was sitting in the other room with about 100 other people and I'm now looking at this plan and my question is, is more so now, I just moved to Minnesota about 4 or 5 years ago and even I know it snows a lot here so my question is, where does all the snow go? You talked about the parking spaces and the trucking, I'm trying to figure out here where the 2 or 3 feet of snow go so I just wanted to state that for the record. That's all. Thanks. Aller: Okay, the line's, please come forward. Scott Hadden: Hello. Well maybe we saved the best for last. We'll see. My name is Scott Hadden. I live in Victoria and I've actually, I'm an optometrist and I've worked inside the Bloomington Walmart Vision Center for 17 years since that store opened and I do not work for Walmart. I'm an independent contractor there. None of the Walmart folks know I'm here. I haven't talked to any of them. Just heard the meeting was tonight and I would be the lease holder in this Chanhassen store and I just a couple of myths as far as for the community that I just wanted to throw out my concept because I've spent more time in a Walmart than this whole room combined I'm sure. You know looking at the websites and the Chanhassen Villager, somehow there seems to be a stereotype that everybody that comes into Walmart is low income, petty thief, you know all these kind of things as I've heard some really disturbing comments and in East Bloomington the economics are much different than Chanhassen but I see people of every socioeconomic level. I see people whose names you would all recognize. Retired professional athletes. Corporate executives. Performers. You know executives. There's all different socioeconomic levels and I love it. I love, I see low income. I see middle income and I see high income and I think that's what's great about our country. Second thing, I saw somewhere that somebody said they don't go into Walmart come out feeling clean. My goodness. Walmart's put hundreds of millions of dollars, and I'm sure Lisa here would say in remodeling. I saw a retail consultant as a patient and he came in and he's like wow. You know you're going to look like Target and have the low prices of Walmart, you're going to get everybody. And the third thing is, and really I think the biggest concern for the community is the impact Walmart has on small businesses. Again the Bloomington store opened in 1995 and there's a little hardware store right in the corner. Still there. Still open. A bakery right between. There's a Home Depot that opened too by the way two blocks the other way and a bakery, who I do see the owner of the bakery and his, a bunch of his staff, his managers patients and he was really concerned about the impact Walmart was going to have on him. His business, he bought the building behind him and expanded his business so I think, I think the key take away and you know there's always going to be competition. The companies that embrace competition and grow and thrive and adapt are the ones that are going to be successful, whether it's Walmart that comes in or another retailer down the road, there's always going to be competition and I think it's competition that makes us all great so anyway I know you've got a lot of tough decisions. I'm sure the smart people at Walmart and for the City will come out with ways to work this out but thanks for listening and hope I see you guys in the future for eye glasses. Bill Shubert: I'm Bill Shubert. I have been in Chanhassen for 5 years this round. I was here about 15 years ago for another 5 years. Was able to move back to the area. I have a few things, first of all for everybody to remember, there were arguments against Byerly's when Byerly's moved in. It worked out well. People you know but that's thanks to the commissions, the people all working together and identifying what has worked well. That said, I don't think this would work well. I apologize but point of order, am I able to ask questions of the Walmart people? Aller: Why don't you ask me the question and then... Bill Shubert: Alright. The statement, there were a number of statements by the Walmart staff to 250 to 300 jobs. The follow up statement to that was $12.15 an hour for full time positions. What percentage of those 27 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 positions are going to be full time when they say 250 to 300 jobs? We've already heard a statement that the reality of, you know there's a net job component. In an effort to prove the community worth Walmart also stated the benefit of trying to concentrate products to help reduce what's delivered. It's easier for the person to take it away. That would also note that that is, I would also be supporting the smaller shelf size and giving them more retail space available so whether it was beneficial for the customer or beneficial for Walmart, one should decide. That of course supports the previous individual's statement of Walmart forcing suppliers to do what they would like. Two last points. First, they were kind enough to do to the State $14.5 million dollars in charity in Minnesota. That is commendable. I would like to know, a straight number is wonderful but I would like to know what was the percentage of profit in Minnesota, percentage of revenue when you look at that $14.5 million dollars. Is that 1%, 7 %, 12 %? So giving back to the State of Minnesota of course I hope everybody here has in their heart charitable giving and knows that there is fortunately a tax benefit with it. The last item was the question that everybody's had on their mind, why here? Almost an unfortunate say was the response by the realtor who had stated it is the best location for the retailer. Now think about that carefully. What we need to do here is decide what is the best location for our community. Thanks. Katherine Peterson: My name is Katherine Peterson. I live at 7713 Vasserman Place. We have lived in Chanhassen 6 years. We moved here because we like the rural feel that we have in this community. I have no facts and figures about things. All I have is the reality of what I have seen, what Walmart has done to my hometown of Litchfield. Drive one hour and 15 minutes west of here and you will drive down Main Street that is practically a ghost town. There are no small businesses. Very few I should say. Very few small businesses left and I would hate to see that happen in Chanhassen. Thank you. Aller: Another person coming up. Thank you. Margaret DiMarco: Hi. I have just a quick comment. My name is Margaret DiMarco. I live at 1131 Dove Court here in Chanhassen. I've been here about 14 years and my neighborhood is on Powers Boulevard and there's two entrances to our neighborhood off of Powers Boulevard and I'm very concerned about the traffic level that's going to take place on that road. I was taking a look at your traffic analysis and just in 2013 we're looking at 2 cars per minute during the high peak time of day, and that's the time of day where I'm going to be taking my kids to swimming or some kind of sport practice and I already have today a hard time getting out of my neighborhood so I'm thinking the City's going to have to end up putting stop lights in to accommodate that traffic level so I just wanted to make that comment so that you'd be aware of that as well as everything else that's said here tonight. Thank you. Aller: Thank you Ms. DiMarco. Okay, is there anyone else that would like to come forward? Please do so. Anyone in the other rooms that would like to come around, please come forward. Deb Lloyd: Hello. My name's Deb Lloyd. I live at 7302 Laredo Drive. I've lived in Chanhassen for 31 years and I've been experienced speaking to the Planning Commission many, over a course of many years but I haven't seen this commission recently. I've never seen in 7 years of sitting and addressing this group so many participants from the community and I really applaud them for coming out because that's what America's all about. Speaking up. With respect to what your job is, and that's looking at this plan presented to you tonight. I did have a couple different points that no one else has addressed yet. One is this Carver County map. It has shading in this area which I kind of wondered about. It didn't address anything specifically in the staff report so I was really curious about is this orange and I did a little study and there actually aren't any businesses tonight that have really commented about the effects coming down Park Road so it turns out that like all these parcels basically highlighted, except this one, are all paying, they're all owned by the same people. So IWCO or I Star Minnesota's Inc taxes on all those parcels which may be why you're not hearing much from the immediate neighbors like you normally would. And then pertinent to the comprehensive plan and this proposal, like someone did say already, Walmart did not put it's best efforts forward on this. Usually when there's a PUD that comes to you, it's because they're asking for something 28 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 exceptional and they're giving something in return. This is so deficient. It's the most deficient proposal I've ever seen come in 7 years of watching what's come forward. Also what's not in here, this is a bit of history maybe for some of you. Mark, maybe you sat through this but we had a gentleman who owned property in Chanhassen who was denied camping on his own property. He made it kind of a long term homestead granted but he was denied camping on his own property. Walmart allows for RV's to park overnight in their parking lot. Now to me that's a campground in Chanhassen and I think that needs to be brought forward. And one other thing, talking about sensitivity. This was zoned for a 60,000 square foot facility. We're looking at double that. Now I know Kate said this proposal is 30% pervious surface but boy my eye doesn't say that. It looks like more than 70% impervious and that has to be calculated infinitely because of the effect that will have negatively on the creek and the sensitive site that we're talking about. Thank you for your time. Aller: Thank you. Kent Ludford: Good evening. Aller: Good evening. Kent Ludford: My name is Kent Ludford, 8615 Valley View Court. Everybody has already commented on all my thoughts about tonight's meeting. Questions. I drive from my home, just off of Audubon, down Audubon. Park Road. Turn left to go up Powers. Wait for the light. Go up to 78 Street and go to my place of business. I do that 13 days on, get 2 days off. Start all over again. But my thinking is, if I understood what they were telling me, it's right - in/right -out. That right out then takes them to Audubon. Back to 5 or Audubon south to get back to Powers to get on the freeway. When I get now any morning 7:15 in the morning I pull up to that intersection. I need to wait til the stop lights have changed. I can get a pass both, cleared both ways. Go up to the stop lights. Stop lights at 7:15 in the morning will allow about 6 cars to go through before they change back to yellow. If there's a truck or a school bus sitting there and you're the sixth car, mostly likely you'll have to wait another 3 minutes for the lights to change again. Now this is a normal Monday through Friday, 7:30 in the morning so I'm thinking to myself we're going to make a right in, a right out all the way down to Park Road. Two lanes. You've got a beautiful soccer field. Kids love that. It's an evening thing. I guess from what I'm hearing most of their traffic is evening. I can see that field getting 3 feet high in grass. They can't use it. The City put up no parking signs. The street's too busy. There's only one places the parents park on the street. That nice, beautiful soccer field will be abandoned because they can't use it. Unless they want to walk from the generous Walmart's parking lot to walk over to play soccer. I have been doing this route for quite a few years. I own a business in Chanhassen. I own the Ace Hardware store. We moved into Chanhassen May 16, 1983. We moved into the Frontier Lumber's, or part of the Dinner Theater complex. It was Frontier Lumber and Herb was getting older. Wanted to retire so I bought him out just the hardware store. I love this town. I donate as much as I can to this town. If I made their kind of money I would be giving them $14 million a year too but I think for dollar for dollar what I'm grossing here compared to them, I do a fairly nice job for the city. Just want to add that we're here for the long haul. We've been in business here for 28 years. I'm second generation. My father started us out in 1950 and we moved here after leaving North Minneapolis to New Hope and now here. I want to stay here. I have to apologize to Walmart. I do. I can't talk about your business. I don't understand your business. I'm a small merchant but I have never walked into one of your stores ever in my life so I can't relate to how you operate and I apologize for not helping you out. So I am the second generation and I have run it the entire time it's been in Chanhassen. Last Saturday I reached that golden age. I'm now 66 years old. I could retire so I figure tome retirement is leaving my 65 hour a week job and I'll cutback and go to about 40. But my son works for me. He'll be third generation. He's taking over. I would like to cutback but I know to know it's survivable for my son and his family. My nephew, who is now 40 something, has worked for me since he was in high school. He'll be part of the new ownership and I want them to survive and be here for another 29 years but that's all extra. My concern is Park Road. The viability of that soccer field for our kids and the traffic flow. 29 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 If that light doesn't change, it's going to take an awful long time to get 6 cars at a time northbound on Powers. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Mike Boyer: Hello. My name's Mike Boyer, 2370 Bridle Creek Circle. I'm actually a fairly recent resident of Chanhassen having moved here a few years ago. Returned to Minnesota from the East Coast. I'm not going to go into a description of what the Walmart that came to Horsham, Pennsylvania did to a reasonably affluent small community there too. Walmart decided, I just want to I guess appeal to your prudence on one thing. I noticed that in the city plan that the economic study that evaluated just how much retail we would support was conducted in 2006. I think they concluded that we needed about 110,000 additional square feet of retail around the center of town. This is 120,000 square feet. Well I don't know about you but I've noticed that a lot of consumer spending habits have changed in the last few years. The recession has been pretty impactful. Because of that wouldn't one think that perhaps it would be prudent to move incrementally or in smaller pieces instead of expanding to a point beyond what the plan actually said ideally we could have supported in more favorable economic times. It leads to one of two consequences if we over expand is one, we'll either see damage to all the other local businesses, or we're going to change our sleepy, self servicing community to something that has to become appeal to all the folks in the area around who are going to become Eden Prairie or Roseville where everybody travels to us because we're just a shopping destination. Just consider please how much retail we could effectively support given the change in spending habits. Thank you. Robby Virnig: My name is Robby Virnig. I live at 26380 Shorewood Oaks Drive in Shorewood but I've been an employee of Target for a year and a half. The thing I'm really worried about is the Walmart, from what I'm hearing is it's going to be 24/7. The thing I'm worried about is the loss of profits from the stores that aren't open that Walmart will be taking due to it being opened 24/7 and I just really wanted to keep my job at Target so that's just all I really wanted to say. Kristy Brackett: My name is Kristy Brackett. I live at 1320 Lake Susan Hills Drive in Chanhassen. That's two blocks away from the proposed site. I have two small children who, we do a lot of activity in that area. Lots of walking. The traffic on Powers Boulevard with the semi's coming through in the middle of the night are going to impact our house probably quite significantly. We already can hear quite a bit in that area so the noise pollution would be a big thing for us. I also have a concern about school bus safety. Our particular neighborhood will be bused to and from Chan Elementary which comes right through that intersection. It's already a really difficult intersection to get through so I can see that as being a potential problem and safety for my children. I also wanted to bring up, I didn't hear anything about lighting for this Walmart. I noticed that other Walmart's that the lighting is pretty significant and tall. I can see that impacting our neighborhood quite significantly as well and we already get quite a bit from the high school that just went in on Friday nights so I'm imaging being sandwiched between those two pretty big lighting fixtures so I don't know, I didn't get to read the whole report but I would hope that that would be addressed in some sort of lighting fixtures if that was something that you could look at. If there's an ordinance about that. Thank you. Aller: Thank you. David Brackett: My name is David Brackett. My wife just spoke. We live at 1320 Lake Susan Hills Drive. We are roughly two blocks away from this giant building and everybody's spoken about the traffic issues. Everybody's spoken about the environmental issues and so on but what hasn't really been I don't think officially addressed is that Walmart has been known as a predatory company. They come in. They clean out. They go after Target. They go after other businesses. That's what they do. There's no reason for them to be in that spot other than to look at Target and to take them down and to take down everybody else in this town. No offense to Walmart but I've studied business. I'm a business student. I've been involved with study groups that have actually studied Walmart and this is what they've done since the early 90's and it's just the 30 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 way they are and they're going to ruin this town. We will lose our marking. We will no longer be considered a small town. We won't even be in the top 10. We'll probably be in the bottom 10. Thank you. Aller: Is there anyone else who would like to come forward at this time and speak? Give it a couple seconds. Anybody coming from the other rooms? Okay, we're going to close the public hearing at this time. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for coming tonight and participating in this process. Providing us with your input. At this time I'll ask commissioners for discussion. Undestad: Well you're looking at me. I'll jump in here. Aller: There you go. Undestad: Obviously we've heard all about Walmart tonight and so I'm not going to talk about any, obviously the laundry list of things to do for a project like this. This proposal. The whole package. Nor am I going to talk about Walmart. What I'm going to come back to is our site. This specific site. Where we were at. What we decided. What we wanted to do with this site, which is why we came to the 60,000 square foot. Audience: Mark, you're hard to hear. Undestad: That's me. No, I was just talking about you know the specific site. Not so much Walmart but I think even if Mr. Ludford wanted to put 120,000 feet on here we'd probably have to say no. It's the size of the project. The size of the site. All the issues that were already brought out on the City's list and again when we looked at this whole area for that commercial business we talked about limiting the size of a so called big box to 60,000 feet for this reason. You know who gets there first. Is it Lowe's? Is it Home Depot? Is it you know whoever? One of those on there and that's it. The rest of the businesses, the rest of the property around this, we don't get to do the same thing I think we originally set out to do. Going with you know 120,000 foot, grade it all down, throw it all in and go. So again you know it's not specifically Walmart, although I know Walmart's a big name and it's what everybody's focusing on. To me I think it's more the site. The size of the site and no matter who's bringing a project like that in, I don't think it's what we had in mind for that site to begin with. Aller: Anyone? Ms. Hokkanen. Hokkanen: I agree with Mark on the whole concept of the, taking the Walmart aside or out of the picture. The traffic. The issues that have been brought up. I'm concerned with the deficiencies and the number of deficiencies that have been brought to our attention that maybe could have been resolved before bringing it to the Planning Commission so I kind of agree. How can we approve it at this point given what has been presented to us? That's about all I have to say. Tennyson: Yeah, I agree with both of the commissioners there. It just seems like it's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. It's not the right site and nobody's really explained how it can be made to work with parking and the particularly the wetland and creek issue, with the creek running right there so. Thomas: Go ahead Ellsworth: Yeah, okay. There's been a lot of emotion in the room tonight. That's very clear. It's actually very exciting to see the community turn out and have this kind of conversation but I think a few of the speakers really hit it well when they talked about the comprehensive plan. I think that's the focus. That's the focus for this body and it's what the board, or the City Council is looking to us to recommend to them based on how this fits or does not fit within the comprehensive plan, and that's been brought up a few times and I think the points have been very salient. We've heard comments like it doesn't fit. It's too big. You look at 31 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 the plan and look at some of the deficiencies that staff has pointed out and to me at least it's clear, it doesn't fit and then when we have to figure out how to make it fit and request a planned unit development and have different requirements and raise the aesthetics, they clearly, this Walmart missed the mark. It simply did not come in above and that's why I asked earlier, I said well didn't you bring your best game? Why wouldn't you bring your best game for this and so I think the property, and please don't applaud. It's not a popularity contest today, though I appreciate the emotion in the room, but certainly the site is zoned for commercial and that's what's ultimately going to go there and we should all expect that and anticipate and that is the reflection of the community through the process of the comprehensive plan and that reflects the values of the community. And so now what type of building or development goes in there certainly is the debate and the discussion and we have I think lots of good guidance in the comprehensive plan. I spent a fair amount of time going through the comprehensive plan. Looking at the goals and looking at this proposal and trying to reach some sort of conclusion and I certainly concur with the other commissioners that this is not the right project for this. I applaud Walmart for their interest in our community and I think it bodes well for us and reflects well on us as a community that they'd like to come here. I think their effort though falls very short and that's how I plan to vote. Aller: Commissioner Doll. Doll: I agree with all of the commissioner statements and it'd be nice in the future when a site would to be developed that we would get more, as much input or more input from the community. It was really good to see the people come out. As this is I don't see it. Thomas: Now it's my turn? Aller: Your turn. Thomas: Okay, fabulous. I too do agree with the Planning Commissioners. I realize it's a concept PUD plan and like we just said eventually it will be a commercial retail site. That's should be expected but I have to follow the comprehensive plan and that's our guidance here. It's not like the other commissioners said, a popularity contest. It's not about who comes to town. It's about how it's designed to fit in our community and it's about how it follows the comprehensive plan and what we set forth and I know it's up to interpretation but at the same time when the City sets forth these findings of facts and says this is what we need, I can't look at a plan that comes in here and says this is what we need but we don't have it yet and I, that's what I have to follow by. I have to follow by our rules and our governing laws to ensure that what gets put forth in the city of Chanhassen is acceptable and follows the rules and regulations because if any one of you came and asked for a permit to do something that was outside of what you could do on your property, we would be the governing body and you would expect us to follow the same rules and laws for you and that's all we're trying to do so with what's put forth right here, I can't approve it is as it is because we've got missing findings of facts that need to be settled first and that would require for whoever ever goes on that site so that's all I have to say. Aller: Okay. As I said in the beginning I think the big issue before us, as I was concerned, is what kind of neighborhoods do we want to create in the city of Chanhassen. What kind of development do we want to bring here and it's been said many times before all kinds of bodies and all kinds of businesses that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. We have a plan. It's been working out very well. I think the leadership with the mayor and the City Council in doing that and with the assistance and support of planning has brought us to where we are today where we're consistently in the top places to live in the country and obviously you as a community are very proud of that. We are very proud of that and in looking at this I don't see anything that says to me we should step outside the plan so I would not support it as presented. So with that I will hear and entertain any motions. 32 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Doll: I have a motion. Aller: Commissioner Doll. Doll: The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends denial of the concept planned unit development based on the findings of the planned unit development as stated in the staff report. Aller: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Undestad: Second. Aller: I have a motion and a second. Doll moved, Undestad seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends denial of the Concept Planned Unit Development based on the Findings of the Planned Unit Development as stated in the staff report for Planning Case 2011 -11. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Aanenson: Chairman, maybe we can take just 5 minutes and let the room clear and then we can go through the rest of the meeting. Aller: We can go through the rest of the meeting. So we'll take a 5 minute recess. The Planning Commission took a short recess at this point in the meeting. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Thomas noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated October 18, 2011 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. None. CITY COUNCIL ACTION UPDATE. Aanenson: The City Council updates would be, there was no agenda items for the 26 so we haven't had anything but I do want to point out, we do not have a meeting scheduled for your November 15 We did have one item that we're doing a PUD amendment on and that actually got moved to December 6 We also do anticipate a replat of subdivision and that's Boulder Cove, which is north of Highway 7 so that's actually coming in probably as a smaller lot subdivision as opposed to a twin and three homes so that will come in as a replat so that will be in January so your next for sure, the one meeting we usually have in December. Aller: December 6th Aanenson: Yeah, because usually we get too close to the holidays and band concerts and everything else so. Aller: And that's Primrose. Aanenson: That's Primrose and another amendment to the PUD for fast food and then the Boulder Cove would be, and something else still may come in for the January meeting but that's all I have for right now. So you'll have a week off. Aller: Nothing further? Entertain a motion to adjourn. 33 Chanhassen Planning Commission — November 1, 2011 Ellsworth moved, Doll 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 9:40 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 34