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CC Minutes 11-28-2011 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 28, 2011 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman McDonald, Councilwoman Tjornhom, Councilwoman Ernst, and Councilman Laufenburger STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Laurie Hokkanen, Paul Oehme, Kate Aanenson, Todd Hoffman, Roger Knutson, Greg Sticha and Sharmeen Al-Jaff PUBLIC PRESENT: Jim & Julie Wagle 8411 Egret Court Jason, & Karey White 1000 Butte Court Clara Winters 1001 Butte Court Thomas & Kathy Bader 8571 Drake Court Adele Pint 1641 Koehnen Circle Scott B. Haas 7264 Pontiac Circle Ryan & Susan Hoffa 970 Lake Susan Hills David Kressler 1750 Valley Ridge Trail No. Matt Blewett 2396 Harvest Way Christoph Leser 8110 Marsh Drive Steve Taborek 8022 Cheyenne Avenue Jenny Pharis 1815 Valley Ridge Trail So. Doug Jacobson 1121 Dove Court Sarah Thomas 2555 Longacres Drive Anita Steckling 8320 West Lake Court Barb Vanderploeg 7706 Vasserman Kathy Peterson 7713 Vasserman Place Laurie Susla 7008 Dakota Avenue Craig O’Connor 1702 Valley Ridge Charles Littfin 7609 Laredo Drive Dennis & Holly Rakocy 880 Kimberly Lane Ronald K. Tonn 8300 West Lake Court th George Beniek 412 West 76 Street Ken Wencel Lake Susan Sharon Gatto 9631 Foxford Road Paul & Jackie Ottoson 7080 Harrison Hill Trail Jesse Sutton 8417 Rosewood Drive th Ellis Thomas 406 West 76 Street Chris Johnson Nez Perce Mary Rabai 7340 Frontier Trail Shelley Kerber 6025 Whitney Circle, Shorewood Ben & Sheila Allrich 1040 Lake Susan Hills Drive Jane Revsbech 2155 Murray Hill Court Stephanie Fisher 1451 Heron Drive Mark Arrington 870 Lake Susan Hills Drive Linda Landsman 7329 Frontier Trail Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Elizabeth Kressler 1750 Valley Ridge Trail No. Gloria Cox 6990 Shawnee Lane Jean Allard 8425 Rosewood Drive Marc Dubinsky 2013 Clover Court Kurt Kuhlmann 8445 Powers Place Laura Helmer 8596 Drake Court Kyla & Lucia Anderson 1440 Heron Drive Rosemary Soltis 8429 Rosewood Drive Steve Hansen 7920 Kerber Boulevard Chris Maiden 2116 Emerson Avenue Chris Berrens 2504 Girard Avenue Laurie Johnson 1807 Valley Ridge Trail No. Judy Anderson 8584 Flamingo Drive Wendy O’Connor 1702 Valley Ridge Trail No. Brad Karels 8105 Dakota Lane Jeff & Carol Anderson 991 Butte Court Kate McGuire 7973 Autumn Ridge Lane Abby & Neil Ellis 2332 Stone Creek Drive Scott Hadden 8345 Keller Pond Drive, Victoria Jack Fess 6280 Ridge Road Dan Mertes 8671 Flamingo Drive Cathy Holmes 8453 Rosewood Drive Debbie Lloyd 7302 Laredo Drive Joyce Arlt 8434 Burlwood Drive Frank Butkowsky Byerly’s Chanhassen th Patty Horton 800 West 78 Street Gary Hein 1011 Lake Susan Hills Drive Larry Pastorek 7071 Shawnee Lane Debra & Kent Ludford 8615 Valley View Court Juliene Furst 8574 Powers Place Mary Ann Carr 8547 Powers Place Connie Kurtz 8554 Powers Place Martin Schaeferte 1111 Dove Court Joe & Bernadette Morrison 10053 Trails End Road Ben Lohs 7951 Tartan Curve, Eden Prairie Lee Kaufman 300 Hidden Lane Alan Young 7580 Walnut Curve Rebecca & Edwin Everett 6301 Near Mountain Boulevard Jeff Fox 5270 Howards Point Road Rick Dorsey 14215 Green View Court, Eden Prairie Frank Ernst 840 Cree Drive Brad Bohlman 8667 Stonefield Lane Mayor Furlong: Thank you very much and welcome. We appreciate everybody who’s joined us here in the council chambers as well as other members of our, residents who have joined us in our senior center this evening and for those watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us this evening. At this time I would ask members of the council if there are any changes or modifications or amendments to the agenda. If not we’ll proceed with the agenda as published. 2 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Furlong: First item on our agenda this evening is an invitation to the lighting of CCP. With the holiday season approaching I’m happy to invite everyone to this wonderful city event. The City of Chanhassen and Buy Chanhassen are proud to announce the 2011 Tree Lighting Ceremony. I invite all rd residents, their families, friends to join me and my family on Saturday, December 3. That’s this upcoming Saturday. 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. City Center Park and the plaza for this event. People of all ages will enjoy the activities including the official lighting of City Center Park, refreshments, caroling, gingerbread displays, live reindeer and a special visit from Santa and some of his helpers. There is no admission fee. The event is free for everyone. For more information feel free to call City Hall. So that’s rd this coming Saturday, December 3 5:00 p.m., City Center Park. CONSENT AGENDA:Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated November 14, 2011 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated November 14, 2011 Receive Commission Minutes: -Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated November 1, 2011 -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated October 25, 2011 Resolution #2011-63: c. TH 5 Improvements: Approve Agreement with MnDOT to Act as the City’s Agent for Federal Aid. d. Approval of Nominations for 2011 Environmental Excellence Awards. Resolution #2011-64: e. Approve Resolution Authorizing Certification of Hook-Up Charges to Property Taxes. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Mayor Furlong: I would ask, I think there’s a sign up sheet here in the council chambers. I don’t know if that tablet’s been passed around yet but if we could have somebody pass that around. If you’re here we’d appreciate you signing your name and address so that we can recognize your attendance in the Minutes. LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATES. Mayor Furlong: Good evening Lieutenant. Lt. Jeff Enevold: Mr. Mayor, council, good evening. I have three quick items for you this evening. I see we have a large crowd here that’s probably anxious to talk. I’ve been up here and talked about this item before but it continues to happen so I think it’s worth repeating. We continue to have thefts from vehicles. Lake Minnewashta dog park, Lake Ann Park, Bluff Creek Elementary and the Landscape Arboretum. Our Chanhassen investigator has identified one of the suspects. He served a search warrant at their home and we’ve recovered some stolen property and we’re trying to get that back to the owners. Last week our investigator also obtained a confession from another individual identified in this thefts and charges are pending against that individual. We’ve linked these thefts to a ring that’s working the area and we’re working with our law enforcement neighbors to try and identify others in this ring and get them out of operation here in the area so our investigator’s done a nice job. What the thieves do is they’ll target 3 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 vehicles with purses inside. They’ll snap up the credit card and they’ll make a beeline for the stores and get gifts cards before the card can be cancelled so we’re working with the local stores here in identifying some of these folks. They’ve got some pretty good video of some of these folks. We’re doing our best to get them all identified and again we’re going to ask for the public’s help in reducing these incidents by reducing opportunities. You know lock your vehicles. Take stuff out of there. If we reduce the opportunities we can reduce the crimes. I mean it’s a simple solution there. Some proactive steps that we’re taking to reduce the crimes and educate our community is providing extra patrols in the areas that are affected. I worked with the County Parks to place a sign at Lake Minnewashta at the entrance there to just remind folks as they drive through to, you know let’s not tempt the thieves. Lock your stuff up. If you see anything suspicious call 911 and we can respond there and try and catch these folks. You know just this morning a deputy stopped in my office to update me on things that happened over the weekend and he says he was providing some extra patrol in the Minnewashta area, the dog park area specifically, the area that gets hit, and he pulled in and got out of his squad car and there were 9 vehicles parked there. Walked along there to look inside and 5 of them had purses in the front seat so, so this is the issue here. You know we need the public’s help in doing this so I walked across the hall to our Crime Prevention Specialist and we talked about some additional items we can do to help to reduce these opportunities and we’re going to give work direction to our CSO’s and to our deputies to start placing crime prevention cards on the windshields of the cars and the vehicles and hopefully some of this stuff will you know, the repetition will sink in here and they can help us prevent some of these crimes. We’re going to continue to be proactive and try and educate our community and reduce these crimes. The second issue I have is last thth month, October 14 through 27 the sheriff’s office participated in the Click It or Ticket Enhanced Seatbelt Education Enforcement Campaign. That’s quite a mouth full. We issued 133 seatbelt violations. 2 child restraint citations during that 2 week period. Unfortunately during the last 3 years in Carver County, 10 unbelted motorists were killed and 6 were seriously injured. The good news out of this, I’m happy to report that the city of Chanhassen had a 98% compliance rate with the seatbelt law so, and you compare that with the national average which was 85% and the state average which is 93%, we’re doing pretty good but again there’s still room for improvement there. You know 98 is good but you know we want that 100% so we’re going to continue to educate our citizens on the importance of wearing seatbelts th and that they do save lives so. Last item I have for you is, on Saturday, October 29 the sheriff’s office participated in the prescription drug take back event. One site was here, next door at the senior center in Chanhassen. We held one down at Chaska and then one out in Waconia. We opened our doors to the senior center at 10:00 a.m. and we closed them at 2:00 p.m. I was there to coordinate the event. We had two DEA agents there. Representative from the County Attorney’s office was there. Two of our Carver County Explorers and one of our reserves was also there to help with the event. We had 86 people come through the door and we collected 125 pounds of prescription drugs, which was pretty successful. The citizens that I talked to, as they came through the door were really appreciative of this event. You know they come through with bags full of prescriptions. They’d say boy I’ve been hanging onto this stuff for 2 years. I don’t know what to do with it. You know thank you for doing this you know. I went over to mom and dad’s house. We cleaned out the medicine cabinet. You know it’s been sitting around so really appreciative of it, and we’re going to make it even more convenient for our citizens to drop off their prescription drugs. At the first of the year we’re going to have a permanent prescription drop box down at the sheriff’s office in Chaska so you can come down there anytime and drop off any prescriptions so that is all I have for you Mr. Mayor and council. Any questions for me? Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Lieutenant Enevold? No? Lt. Jeff Enevold: Great, thanks. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. We’ll continue with the law enforcement and fire department updates with Chief John Wolff of the Chanhassen Fire Department. Good evening Chief. 4 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Chief John Wolff: Good evening Mayor, good evening council members. Just a brief presentation tonight. We are currently in the process of evaluating our mid-manager line officer positions so lieutenants and captains. We have 14 applications we’re reviewing for 9 open positions. All the positions are open and also the command staff. The chief officers are developing our year end plans for 2012 to ensure we’re meeting service needs of all of our customers. All of our constituents. Recently 24 members of the department were involved with combined training with the Southwest Fire Group which is a combination of fire departments in eastern Carver County and southwest Hennepin County, over at the Edina Fire Training Facility. There were well over 200 fire fighters from the various organizations attending this. It was our first opportunity to actually participate in this event and very worthwhile. Six different sessions over 3 days and as I said 24 of our members were involved with this. A couple recent calls. We had a fairly large brush fire down at Powers and Pioneer. We needed assistance from Victoria and Chaska Fire to contain the fire. We had a small garage fire that was discovered by a homeowner and it had involved the exterior of the building. With a quick response from the sheriff’s department they were able to get extinguishers on that fire. The reason why I mention this fire because nothing really serious happened. There was minimal damage. The week prior Eden Prairie had a very similar fire which ourselves and about 6 other jurisdictions also visited or went to and it was a complete, it was a complete destruction of the home. No injuries to homeowners. Three fire fighters were injured in that event. None of them were from Chanhassen so it’s a real small or thin line between a minimal situation and a serious situation. I really would like to close with some holiday fire safety tips. The winter season, whether it’s the holiday time or otherwise is the busiest time of year for fires. It’s a 2 to 1 relative to the summer, spring and fall. Major causes for this are heating. Heating and cooking believe it or not, so about half of the fires that we see are either heating related, portable space heaters or things like that, or cooking fires. When you throw in the holiday decorations and Christmas trees, the holiday season can be very dangerous so we just want to encourage our citizens to be very careful with natural Christmas trees. Keep them, keep the water in the stands. Make sure that they don’t get dry. When they do get dry, you really need to remove them. It’s very similar to gasoline when a Christmas tree is exposed to any kind of fire. It’s the whole thing will be going up in 30 to 45 seconds and that becomes a real problem, it becomes a very serious fire situation. Almost half of the holiday fires are started by candles so managing where you put candles relative to decorations is real important. The majority of those fires occur in the family room, den or living room area so keep decorations away from heat sources and keep the Christmas trees nice and wet and hopefully everyone will have a safe and happy holiday season. Mayor Furlong: Excellent. Thank you Chief. Any questions for Chief Wolff this evening? No? Very good, thank you Chief. Just prior to getting the law enforcement updates I bypassed visitor presentations so I’ll start with visitor presentations this evening. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. Wendy O’Connor: Hello Mayor. Hello City Council. My name is Wendy O’Connor. I’ve recently, along with my neighbor started an organization called Chanhassen First. Back in October we were alerted to the fact that there was a rezoning request. Mayor Furlong: And this will be on our agenda tonight so, you spoke at the public hearing I think. Wendy O’Connor: I did not speak at the public hearing. Mayor Furlong: Okay, generally visitor presentations is for items not on our agenda this evening so. Wendy O’Connor: So you don’t, you want me to wait? 5 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Mayor Furlong: Well we’re not planning to take public comment because the public hearing took place so if you can make it brief. Wendy O’Connor: We’re not speaking. Mayor Furlong: Why don’t you make it brief then and we’ll just take it at this time. Wendy O’Connor: Well, is that okay? It’s up to you. I mean I just. Mayor Furlong: Yep. As I said, visitor presentations are typically for items not on our agenda this evening and we’ll be dealing with this later and the public hearing did take place earlier this month at the Planning Commission. Wendy O’Connor: Okay. Okay, so none of our residents are speaking? Mayor Furlong: We’re not planning to take public comment this evening, that’s correct. Wendy O’Connor: Okay, alright. Audience: Wendy, this is your opportunity. This is your only opportunity to speak. Wendy O’Connor: Well I think that if they had a public hearing… Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Again if there are people that would like to speak not relating to an item on tonight’s agenda, good evening Mr. Scott. Audience: Mayor, we cannot hear very well. Mayor Furlong: Nann could we, or Laurie could we. Laurie Hokkanen: We have a few assisted listening devices. Mayor Furlong: Okay, and let’s check the volume in the council chambers and then there are some devices over here as well and I’ll try to speak into the microphone better. Joe Scott: Do you want me to wait? Mayor Furlong: No, why don’t you go ahead and start and just speak a little bit louder. Joe Scott: I will. Mr. Mayor, councilors, city staff, Joe Scott, 935 Bavaria Hills Lane in Chaska and I’m here to represent Buy Chanhassen. First of all I wanted to thank all you guys for helping us out over the last 2 years to get the effort going and just wanted to let you know a piece of news is that this Thursday st on December 1 we’re going to launch of website, buychanhassen.com and what we’re attempting to be is the Goggle of all things that happen in Chanhassen so we’ve been working with local, not for profits, businesses, city, school district to have all the events in one place so thank you all very much and that’s really all I have to say unless you have some questions. Mayor Furlong: Okay, any questions for Mr. Scott? Councilman Laufenburger: How was your Small Business Saturday Mr. Scott? 6 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Joe Scott: We don’t have numbers in but from the people that we were tracking, the American Express part of it went quite well. They’re expecting to be up maybe 15 to 20 percent over last year because of that particular program so I thought it was quite successful in ramping up for next year so thank you for asking. Mayor Furlong: Well and thank you to Buy Chanhassen for co-sponsoring the event this coming Saturday for the city park lighting so we appreciate your efforts there. Joe Scott: Thank you very much. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Anyone else for visitor presentations this evening? Judy Anderson: Yes. My name is Judy Anderson, 8584 Flamingo Drive. Been a Chanhassen resident for 20 years and since you’re not taking information regarding the rezoning effort, I have to express my frustration with the City’s website. We have been trying to gather information. We’ve been trying to look at your meeting notes. We’ve been trying to look at all the documentation that’s been put up on the City’s website and it continually errors out. I have yet to be able to get to the 214 page document that went up last week so I believe that, I don’t know if anybody else in here has had problems with that but it’s a very, it’s a frustration and I’m concerned that people are not getting the information they need. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Do we have any, from staff, any reason why you wouldn’t be able. Were you…through the project? Judy Anderson: It doesn’t, I cannot get through, I can get through maybe 10 pages and I get an error. I have to start all over. I cannot download it without getting an error. I mean I can provide you with the error messages if you need them but it’s, I think it’s happening to quite a few people so we need to do something about that. Mayor Furlong: Absolutely. This is the first I’ve heard about it so I don’t know if anyone in staff received any comments or anything today. Todd Gerhardt: That’s the first I’ve heard of it too and we’ll look into it. Judy Anderson: I don’t know if it’s the size of the documents but I’m timing out. I’m getting an error that I can’t download it or print it or I can’t do anything with it so we’ve tried to cut it up into chunks and take 20 page chunks to pull it down. Sometimes we’re successful. Sometimes we’re not so I just want to get it on the record that we are having a problem getting the public information. Todd Gerhardt: We’ll look into it and try to figure out what happened because typically our planning reports are fairly large so you know they should be. Judy Anderson: Even meeting minutes are difficult. It’s just, it’s inconsistent and I don’t know what the problem is but I think it needs to get looked at. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, the meeting minutes are verbatim so they’re going to be fairly large too so we’ll look into it and see what happened there. Judy Anderson: Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you for letting us know. Anyone else on visitor presentations this evening? Okay, thank you. 7 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 WALMART: REQUEST 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. Mayor Furlong: I guess just to start out with, to explain how we anticipate this item going this evening. We’re going to start out with a staff report which will be presented by Kate Aanenson, our Director of Community Development in Chanhassen as well as probably Paul Oehme who is our City Engineer and others as appropriate. Then we’ll hear from the applicant, or their representatives. Likely to discuss any changes in their application that took place since the Planning Commission that occurred earlier this evening. I suspect that the council may have some questions for staff or the applicant or both and we’ll take those as well. As I mentioned earlier during visitor presentations, we’re not anticipating taking any public comment this evening. The public hearing did take place at our Planning Commission meeting on st November 1. Earlier this month. Tonight’s council packet did include verbatim minutes which the council has and by that I mean every word is recorded and taken down and typed out and so that was a part of our council packet in preparation for tonight’s meeting so all of us have had an opportunity to read everybody’s comments. We also have received, and I believe most of them went to the entire council but I know I’ve received numerous emails and comments. Some phone calls. Conversations in the grocery aisles and other places so I think there’s, while I personally and I don’t know about other council members, haven’t been able to respond to every email. Know that they’ve been received and each one has been read as well. Following staff and the applicant’s presentations we’ll bring the item back to council for comments and a motion and appropriate action, so Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Mayor, due to the fact that I work for Target Corporation, I’ll be recusing myself from this discussion. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. So with that let’s start with a staff report. Ms. Aanenson, good evening. Kate Aanenson: Good evening. Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. Again as you stated mayor, the developer’s requesting a rezoning to permit a commercial development on land currently guided for industrial office and community commercial use. In conjunction with the request the applicant is requesting approval of a general concept PUD for 120,000 square foot Walmart. Planned unit developments offer enhanced flexibility to develop the site and the use of the PUD also allows for greater variety of uses and transfers within the site. In exchange for that flexibility the development plan must result in a significantly higher quality and more sensitive proposal than would be the case with any other of the more standard zoning districts. So with that I’ll give you a little bit of background on kind of the process. I think mayor you tried to frame this up a little bit but again I want to go through the concepts. I’ve had quite a few phone calls and I want to make sure everybody understands the process, again kind of reiterating. The intent of the concept plan is to get direction from the Planning Commission and the City Council without incurring a lot of expense. I think at the Planning Commission there was some concern about whether or not plans were detailed to the satisfaction of the residents, but again this is a concept plan and with that concept plan the Planning Commission does hold the public hearing and as you indicated, the verbatim minutes from that meeting are included in the packet, as well as revised plans that were included. We did include the traffic study and the parking study. The petitions that were handed out at the Planning Commission meeting. Also the emails and any additional emails that were received prior to the, this packet going out so, and that’s listed in the attachments, if anybody has questions on exactly what was included in that. So again the updated staff report is what we’ll be reviewing here tonight. The changes that were from, that the applicant has put in the letter and that letter 8 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 is also attached in your packet and I’m sure that they’ll want to go through that, and then also there was an additional letter from IWCO direct, the property owner. So those are some of the attachments that are in there. Oh sorry, and then just want to clarify again the Planning Commission did hold that hearing on st the November 1. So the site itself is located at the intersection of Highway 5 and Powers Boulevard. This site was the original Victory Envelope site and has been a vacant building located on this site. The elevation changes on this property significantly, and you’ll see that in the architecture. Changing from Highway 5, the highest point down to the creek, approximately 40 feet so there’s a significant change in elevation that impacts. Again the site has been vacant for a number of years. There currently is a building on there of 154,000 square feet that would include the mezzanine, so again it’s a 14 acre site. Natural resources. This was an enhanced plan that was submitted after the Planning Commission which shows the natural features on the site, and this is one of the issues that the staff was concerned with in the Planning Commission recommendation and that’s the fact of the natural features on the site. The creek that goes through it and the wetland. So this is within the shoreland management district of Riley Creek. Also an impaired water and it flows through the western side of the property, and Minnesota Rules Chapter 6120 describes how this property can be used. Again because this is conceptual we don’t have all the information on that but in our opinion, as I go through this you’ll see that it meets the minimum setback standards. There’s not that enhanced that we were looking for. So again for the water quality as we talked about, there are two tributaries. The site is tributary to two surface waters that I included, Riley-Purgatory Creek and Lake Susan so we talked about that. The concern there again which we don’t have enough information is the impact to that. A storm water report, a couple page report was included in one of your attachments too and that was detailed in your staff report in a little bit more detail. Again the issue that we had at the Planning Commission, so this picture here on this property here shows the site boundaries and the existing trees, so all the trees would be removed except for that which is in the wetland buffer area. So because there is a wetland in there. There is a wetland setback and then a wetland buffer so the majority of this retaining wall is adjacent to, at the minimum. There are parts that are outside that minimum. It’s pretty much at the minimum it can be in order to accomplish the parking that needs to be on the site. Again that was one of our major concerns and the Planning Commission felt the same way on that issue. So the concern again with the wall there, it’s kind of fragmenting that natural feature by putting up that wall and what that would do to impact the natural function and the diversity of the plant species within there. Then the landscaping itself, it meets the minimums. There needs to be some reshaping of the islands to meet the City standards and the like but it’s at the very minimum as required for landscaping itself. The landscaping up here is just outside that retaining wall and then the rest of this is outside the perimeter which would be on the Highway 5. Oh I’m sorry, I wanted to talk about something else on this site. I’m sorry. So on this site one of the issues that we had, and it’s a little bit tough to see at this scale but one of the bigger issues that we had on this site, which has been kind of a point when we’ve, when the applicant has redrawn the parking to move this retaining wall. That was really the biggest change from the Planning Commission on this report. The retaining wall was moved outside because originally the retaining wall was in the buffer area so it’s moved outside but it’s at the minimum, and in order to do that the parking configuration changed. While the ratio of parking stalls changed slightly, the biggest change would be then the circulation, or the number of parking stalls. The point I want to address here is the loading and refuse areas. So the trucks that are coming into the site are coming around, let’s see if you can see this mouse here. Coming around the building itself, and the way our city ordinance reads is that if there’s a number of loading berths that they should, the location be separated from the parking stalls itself. If you look at other similar sized buildings in the city we have, there’s not parking behind in conflict with the loading docks. So access, location and design. Access, each required spot should not interfere with the parking stalls itself. If you see how the trucks come around the building, they’re awfully tight to these stalls in and of itself and if any car is not completely in the stall, you’re awfully close or touching that. Even coming around the building so that’s of great concern. Again one of the deficiencies that we found is just the overall design of the loading configuration, not consistent or compliant with the city code, and again that would include just the encroachment of the truck aisles coming around. Not just in the back area but also as they come around, 9 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 trying to swing these movements to get back out onto the site. The other issues we had, and I did include this in the attachments to, was their parking study so based on this size square building of 120,000, 528 parking stalls were needed to be provided. So the applicant provided a parking study that believes that Walmart’s belief that they only need 4.5 per 1,000. However their parking ratio recommended the study did not accommodate snow storage or effective parking. Because this is a retaining wall around the perimeter of the site, snow storage and the loss of some of those stalls when they’re already at a diminished ratio was a concern. And as an addition, the biggest concern with the parking ratio was that the city, our city ordinance, City of Chanhassen ordinance says you can use compact stalls but they should not be used in a situation where you have high turnover parking. For example in an office park you might be able to do that but when you have a turn over, compact stalls are not recommended or prohibited by the city code. Paul Oehme: Thanks Ms. Aanenson. Mayor, City Council members. I’ll just briefly talk about the traffic impacts associated with the proposed development. The applicant did complete a traffic impact study for the proposed development. Staff has reviewed the report and has commented on the report, and that is also included in your packet. City staff has also met with Carver County representatives and Minnesota Department of Transportation representatives on this proposed site to, since some of the traffic impacts do impact their associated infrastructure as well so. Just like to talk about some of the impacts first to Park Road, which is on the south side of the, on the proposed development. This location here does show the access points of the development. The proposal is for one full access and one half access point, which is a right-in/right-out on the east side. Staff does feel that this is a minimum amount of access points for this size of facility. Typically we’ve looked at over 60 retail sites within the metro area and most of the facilities of this nature, this size retail do have you know more than 3, sometimes access points and access typically for delivery and service trucks are segregated from the shopping parking facilities. The parking stalls. Under this case they are not separated so that is definitely a concern for us. Since the Planning Commission meeting the applicant has moved the east access point, which is shown here, another several feet to the west allowing for additional storage here. That was one of our concerns at the Planning Commission level. And also has increased the stacking length of the turn lanes on the westbound, or the west access point, exiting point so, and that’s at a minimum length that was shown in the traffic report. I think the turning, the stacking lengths of this turn lane, these turn lanes are about 150 feet and that’s what the minimum amount required that’s shown in the staff report, or in the traffic report. The staff does still have some concerns with the traffic flow on park road. For instance the, since these east and west access points are so close together there’s a potential for some weaving or for conflicts for shoppers exiting at the east access and shoppers trying to get into the west access point. At this location also potentially, since U turn movements, turn around movements at Park Road here potentially could be an issue since there’s only one left turn lane out of the site to Powers Boulevard so this sort of movement is another concern for us as well. Next. Lock up? There you go. Start it over. Okay, so is that the next slide? Okay, next slide. Alright, so moving on. Yep, next slide please. There you go. So meeting with, reviewing the traffic study and meeting with MnDOT and Carver County representatives the, if the proposal were to move forward there are several improvements necessary we feel on Trunk Highway 5 and Powers Boulevard that would, are recommended to be made if this proposal moves forward. For example currently westbound 5 to southbound Powers Boulevard only has one left turn lane. Under the traffic impacts for this site is recommended that another left turn lane be installed on 5 in conjunction with the project. Also northbound Powers Boulevard to westbound 5, currently there’s only one left turn lane there. That, another turn lane should be added along, in conjunction with this project as well. Also the length of these turn lanes we feel should be increased in size to facilitate stacking and to facilitate conflicts for through movements on Powers Boulevard northbound so those improvements are necessary we feel. And then also signal timing would be necessary as well so. Improvements to Powers Boulevard, again Powers Boulevard. Mayor Furlong: Looks like Park Road. 10 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Paul Oehme: Or I’m sorry, Park Road. I’m sorry, Park Road. Currently there is no median on Park Road. Under this development’s proposal it’s recommended that a center median be constructed. This would, is necessary so the east access point at the site, you can’t make that left hand turn movements onto Powers Boulevard. If that movement would occur it’s felt that that there’s just too many conflicts in that access point. It’s too close to the intersection of Powers Boulevard and would just back up and create problems, traffic problems at that intersection. Also in conjunction with the improvements, signal at Power Road and Powers Boulevard is recommended for this proposal so. And the proposal, all these improvements associated with Park Road, Powers and Trunk Highway 5 are currently not in the City’s CIP and are recommended to be paid through and by the developer if the project were to move forward so. With that staff did find some deficiencies in some of the traffic analysis that the developer did complete. For example the traffic counts that were completed were taken in February which is not the ideal time to take traffic counts since they are typically lower than the average summer usage. Staff figures there’s probably about a 20% less traffic counts in their report than we would anticipate during the summer months but staff did take that in consideration with and talked with MnDOT and Carver County and at this time we feel that the improvements associated with 5, Powers and Park can accommodate the improvements. Can accommodate the traffic associated with the development so with that I’ll turn it back to you. Kate Aanenson: Then finally just kind of review some of the architectural changes that were made. Again one of the challenges for the PUD is the enhanced architectural expectations. There was some changes made to it. This is all four sides. I’ll just kind of quickly kind of go around some of them. This would be the front of the building with some benches added and some plantings. Extension of the awning over the front. The materials changing a little bit. Again this another view of the front so this would be coming in off of Park Road. Again another view of the front. Councilman Laufenburger: Excuse me Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Yes. Councilman Laufenburger: Kate, is this the revised picture? Kate Aanenson: Yes, these are slightly revised. Yes. st Councilman Laufenburger: So this is revised from the November 1. Kate Aanenson: Yep, minor changes, yes. Thank you for that clarification. Again in this area here then would be the tree planting and the benches and awnings over the front. The top picture is actually looking again the front from a distance and then the bottom picture would actually be driving eastbound on Powers Boulevard looking at, this was the issue we had before where there wasn’t enough articulation. There’s still a transparency issue that’s required when you have a site that’s visible from Highway 5 with the Highway 5 Overlay District so transparencies, there was some additional articulation given but the transparency part of it is still not met. And then I think at the Planning Commission there was a pylon sign in the corner. This was redesigned to be a monument sign at the corner here. Again some additional on those sides where you can see, as required, some breaks in those large expanses of buildings. Some additional articulation was added. Then again it’s the transparency issue again so the requirements of the standards of the PUD, there’s the 9 criteria and one of the criteria then would also be the architecture so again the site planning and building architecture should reflect a higher design standard. This doesn’t exactly meet even the standards in and of itself but it’s not of a higher quality and I think the issue, that was one of the issues the Planning Commission also went back to so the higher standard, including the transparent articulation is still not met. So with that the Planning Commission at their meeting on 11 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 st November 1 voted 7 to 0 to recommend denial of the concept PUD based on the findings that the intent and the specific standards of the PUD were not met. So again the, in some areas the City’s expectation that the development will result in a significantly higher quality and more sensitive proposal than would have been the case with other more standard zoning district as we pointed in the, some of the areas where they met their minimum or didn’t meet the standards of the ordinance. So with that mayor, members of the council then the proposed motion would be that the City direct the staff to prepare the Findings of Fact and Conclusions for denial of the concept PUD. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Any questions from council for staff at this point? Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yes. Kate I hope you’ll forgive me, I know that if I was talking to Paul about roads he would be really happy so I’m hoping that you’re going to be happy about talking about planning tonight. I want to take us back in time to 2009 when this changed to CC and if you could refresh council’s memory and maybe those in the audience too why we changed it and what our reasoning was and what our intent was. Kate Aanenson: Sure. When we looked at the downtown itself, the downtown area, what we consider kind of between entrance of 101 heading towards Powers Boulevard. There wasn’t a lot of available land left. In looking at that to strengthen our core of the downtown we wanted to provide those neighborhood kind of needs that we say, kind of the business services that meet your daily needs. We wanted to increase the area for potential commercial development so actually we created a zoning district for this, we left it either. It could be industrial or it could be a commercial and we created a new zoning district, Community Commercial and we set standards in place for that. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And how did we go about setting those standards for that? Kate Aanenson: We spent a lot of time. We brought in a consultant. We spent some time talking about what we felt would be you know, what would be a compliment to the downtown and kind of strengthen the core and again looking at size and scale of what would be an appropriate use for the property. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And so then can you tell me what those conclusions were from that study? Because I hate to be putting you on the spot or maybe I can talk to Paul about some roads while you think about the answer. Kate Aanenson: Well yeah, in the community commercial zoning district, actually I did make it one of the attachments in your packet, if I can just go to that quick because I don’t have it off the top of my head. The intent was to provide a medium sized to larger sized development but that no, the minimum square foot would be 15,000 square feet and that the maximum square foot for that use would be, let me make sure I’m ready this, 65,000 square feet. Kind of looking at that providing additional space for that. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And how did we come to the conclusion that 65,000 square feet was the largest we wanted to go? Kate Aanenson: Well we worked with a consultant. We kind of went through an analysis of kind of looking at what the impacts would be to Powers Boulevard. Kind of looking what would be in downtown. What would compliment that. What would be, I think we kind of did taste preferences and some of those studies looking at that. 12 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilwoman Tjornhom: And I think from that study though we concluded that we were thinking that with that size of establishment it would be a furniture store, or it would be a sporting goods store, is that correct? Kate Aanenson: Well I think we left that kind of like if… Councilwoman Tjornhom: As an example. Kate Aanenson: …as examples, right. We didn’t, we just said that the total building area on any single level would not be more than 65,000 square feet. Assuming that if it was something else, that it would be stacked. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And then with that 65,000 square feet, if that was the max, what was the parking that was going to be allowed then? Kate Aanenson: Well if it was retail, it’s all driven by the city ordinance as would this application would be so if it was straight retail then we use 5 per 1,000. If it’s some other combination. I mean it’s still, industrial is still an appropriate use. It could have came in as an office, which has also been you know kind of a compliment with some supporting commercial which we talked about too. An office that might have embedded within it some commercial. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And this is a question for anyone at staff that dares answer it I guess. Since 2009 we changed this zoning, how much interest have we had on this property as far as businesses or office industrial establishments coming in? Kate Aanenson: Probably pretty little interest. On this particular site you’re talking about. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Correct. Kate Aanenson: Correct, that’s correct. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And is this the, is this the only site we have in town where we have this instance of it being CC and 65,000 square feet? Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Yes, well there’s a couple other parcels with it that we guided CC. It’s not just this piece. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Right. Kate Aanenson: Yep, that’s correct. And again it was a unique, new commercial zoning district. Yep. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Okay, other questions for staff? Councilman Laufenburger: I do Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Kate regarding the parking study that was done. Walmart or Kimley-Horn did the parking study, is that correct? 13 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Councilman Laufenburger: And that, the results of their study seems to be significantly different than our ordinance, or at least looks like they’re saying they have enough parking of the right type and according to our ordinance we say they don’t. How long has our parking ordinance been in place? Kate Aanenson: It’s been in place with those ratios for quite a while. I think the last change we made was we actually increased the stall width a number of years ago based on some overall dissatisfaction. Councilman Laufenburger: Dings. Doors. Things like that. Kate Aanenson: Some of the commercial developments in town so we made them a little bit wider and so that’s probably been the biggest change to the standard. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, so clearly we have evidence that those parking restrictions and etc has been successful in the past? Kate Aanenson: Yes and I would also add there’s other instances where we do do shared parking but we demonstrate that and this was another instance where, in this particular site there’s nowhere else to share except on a public street. There’s no overflow for some other, as sometimes we have developments that have cross access agreements. Where they have a common driveway between properties but in this circumstance there is nowhere else to go and our concern too was based on the number of compact stalls, it was already compromised and then the fact that you’ve got the retaining walls with the snow further compromised that so we felt that was really, didn’t meet the standard. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, thank you Kate. Mr. Oehme, you referenced a traffic study. Who was that traffic study conducted by? Paul Oehme: Kimley-Horn and Associates completed it. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, so Kimley-Horn did that but you spoke about some changes to Powers Boulevard, Park Road, Highway 5. Is there now agreement between the parties that the changes that you’ve identified on 5, Powers, Park, etc, would those changes be adequate enough to satisfy even what you would describe as a 28% low parking study? Paul Oehme: Based upon you know MnDOT’s, our conversation with MnDOT and Carver County’s analysis, what they performed, plus the City did hire SRF, another consulting firm to review our findings and our recommendations. Based upon all those entities we feel that the improvements on Park Road, Powers Boulevard and Trunk Highway 5 that are being proposed would be adequate to handle the traffic. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. And you said this before but just clarify for me. You said that none of the changes that would be necessary if this project moves forward, none of them are in the CIP. For our audience what’s the CIP? Paul Oehme: Yeah I’m sorry. The Capital Improvement Plan. That’s the annual capital infrastructure plan that the City puts out annually and it looks out in the future 5 years to budget for and look at potential projects as years come up so it’s a budgetary and planning tool that the City uses. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay so none of these, none of these suggested changes that now, after all the parties are in agreement on, none of them are part of the CIP for at least 5 years? 14 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Paul Oehme: None of them are part of the City’s capital improvement plan or the County’s capital improvement plan or MnDOT’s. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Alright, thank you Mr. Mayor. That was my questions. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions? Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have. Councilman McDonald: I’ve got a few. Mayor Furlong: Let’s go to Mr. McDonald first and then Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilman McDonald: Okay. I’ll yield to Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: No, you go ahead. Councilman McDonald: Okay. I guess I’ve got you know a couple different areas I want to go to Ms. Aanenson. What we’ll start with is the concept PUD. I guess I’m not familiar with that and all the time I spent on the Planning Commission and everything, this is the first time I’ve seen this. Why a concept PUD? Kate Aanenson: Well typically a concept PUD is to get, as stated in the ordinance itself, is to get some general direction from the council whether or not you feel that the PUD is the appropriate. That you’re getting something for giving the flexible in zoning so the concept PUD, instead of spending all the money on the stormwater calculations, engineering for the building, that you would look at it in a generalized concept to say whether or not that this merits those 9 findings that are in the PUD and whether or not they would merit giving it, considering going to the next level which would mean going back to the Planning Commission and back to the City Council for the project itself. Councilman McDonald: Well one of the biggest criticisms I heard at the Planning Commission meeting and through a lot of the emails I’ve been receiving is the lack of detail that Walmart provided to us but what it sounds like is you’re not going to get a lot of detail with a concept PUD so why didn’t we go straight to a PUD so we could get out that kind of detail? Kate Aanenson: Well I think the question then is up to the applicant on whether or not they wanted to pursue that route to gauge what, again they’re asking for the flexibility. Are they getting the, are they providing that to you as opposed to the standard zoning district, which they also could have pursued. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Who’s idea was it to go with the concept PUD? Was it the city staff or was it the applicants? Kate Aanenson: Yeah, the city staff and the applicant both agreed to that process. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Now based upon what you would expect from a concept PUD, which is mainly just, you know it’s throwing something out there, which is very vague and hoping to get some comment back on it. Would you say that Walmart provided what you would expect from a concept PUD? Kate Aanenson: Yes. 15 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman McDonald: Okay. And the other question I was kind of wondering about was, when was the City first approached by Walmart to actually put this in because I’ve only known about it for a month. Kate Aanenson: Well they didn’t submit an application until sometime in October. They were looking at some traffic studies. I think when they first approached us we had some concerns about whether or not it would fit on the site. Councilman McDonald: There was a letter in our packet that was dated in March, which was correspondence going to the City. Was that? Kate Aanenson: That’s the traffic study part of it. Councilman McDonald: Okay. So there was some activity back in March that Walmart was interested in that site or at least in the city? Kate Aanenson: Right. But let me also say that when we meet with applicants, we meet sometimes a year or two and they may never submit. They give us information and you know lots of times that’s proprietary information. They’re just checking out the market. Doing some market studies and they may never come forward so I think in this circumstance, just to see what the traffic study showed, we are working through that. Whether or not they choose to go forward after that is up to them. Councilman McDonald: Okay. And I know we’ve had public hearings on all of this and we’ve heard definitely from the public. What I’m most, you know I guess curious about is what input have we heard from the businesses? And by that I mean the business council which would be like the Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce, Buy Chanhassen, local businesses and those types of things. Kate Aanenson: They, some of those did speak at the public hearing. Some of those business owners in town did speak at the public hearing. Councilman McDonald: Okay but as far as Buy Chanhassen which represents most of the businesses in town, you haven’t heard from them? Kate Aanenson: Right. I think again looking through the application as part of the normal process that, that we would proceed as we would with any other application. Councilman McDonald: Okay. So should this go forward that would be one of the things that you would expect to happen is that there would be input from the businesses at a more formal level as to the impact. Kate Aanenson: Well I guess we were comparing it to whether or not it met the zoning ordinance. The PUD requirements. Councilman McDonald: Okay. How about, have you heard anything from law enforcement or the fire department? Have they made any comments on these plans at this point? Kate Aanenson: No. But antidotally again at the Planning Commission we did discuss where the Target trade area is. It’s you know you go into Excelsior, Waconia so that’s the primary area that you’d be looking at. People gave numbers that were from other states, other regions. I mean our police, our sheriff’s office will tell you that it’s the local area, what our crime rate is here now would be continued to be the statistic that we would use. 16 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman McDonald: Okay but I guess what I’m concerned about is you know one of the things I’ve received in all my emails is that there’s a lot of concern about crime going up and I guess you know that would be a question that we would need to ask the law enforcement, is that their experience? Is that what they would expect? And then at that point what we can begin to look at is, what’s the impact upon our city budget. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. When you add retail to your core you’re going to probably see a similar amount of crime. Councilman McDonald: Okay, so this is something that we would normally plan for anyway. Todd Gerhardt: Correct. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Councilman McDonald: Okay. The other thing, going back to, was it 2008-2009? Councilwoman Tjornhom: 2009. Councilman McDonald: 2009. What got us going down this road was, it was the McComb’s study as I recall. Is that right? Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Councilman McDonald: And one of the results as I remember from that was that you know we had a large retail capacity within this area. Am I remembering that correctly? Kate Aanenson: A large trade area. Councilman McDonald: Trade area, okay. Which would be conducive to bringing in certain businesses and to improve the I guess the commercial aspects of the city. Kate Aanenson: Well what the McComb’s study looked at is two things. We looked at where our trade area was. Kind of what’s our neighborhood, kind of that convenience area which we consider the downtown core, which is you know your daily needs. Your grocery stores. Those sort of things. Then the potential for a larger regional draw. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Kate Aanenson: So I think part of the concern was, or we wanted to make sure that we had opportunities to expand in the core so we weren’t competing with a regional draw and keeping those trips that we have downtown, that are daily needs, in the downtown core. Councilman McDonald: Okay, so as a result of this though we did kind of make a decision and that was part of the rezoning was to enhance the downtown area and also the trade areas of bringing in businesses to the city. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Councilman McDonald: Okay. The other thing I’m a little curious about too is we’re saying that the square footage on the site should be about 65,000 square feet yet the current building on there is 140,000 17 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 square feet and I recall a plan at one time of allowing someone to move into that building and take it over. I think that was the furniture concept that we had looked at. Kate Aanenson: We haven’t looked at any concept there. Again they’ve asked for the PUD to get flexibility to relief from the requirements of any district so. Councilman McDonald: Well I guess my point is though that if someone wanted to come in and if IWCO could rent out the building to someone that would do retail, we would be right back in this same predicament because if they wanted to keep the building and use that structure, they’ve already exceeded the square footage that we would allow. Kate Aanenson: But they still have to meet all the other city standards which would be parking. If it was retail at that standard they would have to meet that. Councilman McDonald: Okay but at that point you’re still dealing with an existing site though. Kate Aanenson: But they would still, if there’s a change in use they would still have to meet all the other parking standards that would apply. We wouldn’t issue a building permit for a change in use or obviously there’d have to be some remodeling to go to a retail and at that point we would. Councilman McDonald: So then are we forcing a situation where the only person who can go in there on that site would have to raze that building? Kate Aanenson: No. If they came in and used it as it is today, as an office industrial use and it met the standards, that happens all the time in the city. Where people go in. Change out buildings and if they have enough of the, the main criteria would probably be parking. If they meet that. Councilman McDonald: Okay, so if it went back to one of the uses that we had for commercial business there probably would not be a problem? Kate Aanenson: Again it would still have to meet all the standards. I couldn’t say unless I saw what the use was. Councilman McDonald: Well I said probably. You know it would probably come a lot closer to meeting the standards because it was existing and there had been a business in there at one time with both manufacturing and office. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, are you talking about office industrial type use? Councilman McDonald: Office industrial type, yes. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Again this building has a large share of warehouse. Warehouse takes minimal parking so office also does require a little bit higher level of parking so. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Mr. Oehme, I’ve got some questions concerning traffic. We talked a little bit about the infrastructure improvements and everything that would be required here, which I guess you know Walmart has agreed to, and none of that is in our plan for 5 years and actually right now it’s not even in there for 6 years because we’re not looking at making those improvements. Is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. 18 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman McDonald: Okay. And the thing I understand from all of this is that roughly we’re looking at a million and a half dollars as an estimate to do those improvements. Is that a fair statement? Paul Oehme: That’s roughly the scope and size of it. Councilman McDonald: Okay. And with those improvements I believe you’ve already stated that those begin to meet what you feel would be the minimal requirements for an establishment like this to come into that particular site. Paul Oehme: I believe it does, and it also looks out into the future too. Councilman McDonald: Okay because at that, if we intend to develop that area of the city, no matter what we do we’re looking at having to do some improvements to the infrastructure. The roads, turning lanes and those types of things. Paul Oehme: Absolutely and it all depends upon timing and staging and what development is being proposed. Councilman McDonald: Okay. And I guess you know I got a side question. I’m not sure you can answer this. Maybe Ms. Aanenson can but typically if you have those improvements already in place, isn’t it much more conducive to bringing in development instead of having them to come in and build it from the ground up? I’ll accept your opinion. You don’t have to base it upon anything. Kate Aanenson: No I’m just, in a perfect world the improvements would be in place first but as we know with development, development often brings the required infrastructure improvements with it. Councilman McDonald: Right, and then from there more development generally will take place. Kate Aanenson: That would be correct. Councilman McDonald: Okay. The other thing going back Mr. Oehme on traffic. You know one of my great concerns is definitely Park Avenue I believe. What is our experience, and I would point out to the example of what they’re looking at as far as a right out on that eastern entrance. You’d be able to go down to where the barrier ends. They would put up No U Turn signs so that people could not turn there but I kind of draw your attention to Galpin and CVS. I believe we have the same situation there where we have a median and we have No U Turn signs. What’s our experience with that? Paul Oehme: Not good. That’s been a problem for the City, and actually Galpin’s Carver County so. We have had problems enforcing that in that location and also the No U Turn at Coulter too I think over at the gas station there and too there’s some problems associated with that. Councilman Laufenburger: Century. Paul Oehme: Century, I’m sorry. Century, yeah. So those two examples are, hold true here too I think. Councilman McDonald: Okay, so as part of going forward with this, I mean that would be one of my great concerns is definitely you know getting people in and out. Is it possible to resolve that you think in working with the applicant on getting something done? Again that would be more of a detailed approach but if that were a restriction upon you know getting final approval, do you see enough cooperation to be able to resolve that? 19 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Paul Oehme: Well I think the applicant is willing to work with us. They have been trying to address some of our concerns, even from Planning Commission stage to City Council stage here. Unfortunately I think this site is really tough to work with in terms of access. I mean we only have access points on Park Road and for a size facility like this you like to see at least 2, maybe even 3 access points or roads associated with access points around the facility so you know, it’s tough right now for me to envision a better scenario than we have right now. We can always go back to the drawing board and look for other solutions but right now I think this is the best plan that we can come up with. We don’t want to have another access point off of Powers Boulevard. The grades don’t work there, slip on lanes or anything like that. And access off of 5 would not work at all either so just because of. Councilman McDonald: Well I guess going back to one of our earlier premises in this is that we’ve made the decision that we’re going to develop this area. We’ve come up with a number of ideas of what it could be. No matter what we come up with we have to make improvements down there to make it work. Whether or not we put a restriction on it about size is not material at this point but in working with the applicant I guess what I’m looking for, you know in an ideal world you’re right. This probably isn’t a good site but we haven’t identified any other sites within the city to be able to fit something such as this that would still benefit the core downtown area so we’re kind of stuck with this and what I’m getting here is that while it’s not the best site, it is a feasible site. Improvements have been made to make it a better site. There’s probably additional improvements that do need to be made. Paul Oehme: Correct and I think it comes back to what was originally in our comprehensive plan and what we looked at back in 2009. A 65,000 square foot facility or there about’s. I mean I think that’s the size of facility that really works best for this site so. Councilman McDonald: But then what I come back to is that that evidently is not working because nobody’s coming forward to build a 65,000 square foot site. If we want to develop down there, aren’t we faced with a situation that we need to make this work and if what you’re telling me is that it’s possible, then we could deal with the other issues. If it’s not possible to again deal with traffic and make the site a viable retail space, then we don’t need to worry about whether it’s 65,000 or 120 because it can’t get past the first hurdle of traffic. Kate Aanenson: Well I think the traffic regarding Powers Boulevard and Highway 5 may be addressed by the applicant. I think the larger issue is about the functionality of the internal site and if it doesn’t function well then it’s not going to do well. We’ve learned that from experience. We’ve also learned from experience that if it doesn’t fit, if we’re creating something deficient then maybe we should wait for something else to come along and something better, just because in these times right now, I think having deficient parking and poor internal circulation is a critical issue for a design. We don’t have anything else like this where we have the loading berths in the back adjacent to parking and, as the City Engineer indicated I think we could resolve the Highway 5 and the Powers Boulevard issue. It’s this access point here where it’s very narrow off of Park Road and again because of the size of the building demanding that type of parking ratio and the access points requiring the circulation to be so tight coming around the building, it causes some functionality problems. For internal circulation. For pedestrians walking to the site and for cars parking, getting in and out of the site. Councilman McDonald: So what I’m hearing is that while we may be able to deal with the external problems, you feel the biggest problem is going to be the internal traffic, solving that problem. Kate Aanenson: Correct. 20 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman McDonald: Okay, and I guess the question I would have at that point to you then would be that based upon your experience of working with the applicant, do you think this is a solvable problem or do you think this is an insolvable problem? Kate Aanenson: I’ll let the applicant answer that question. Councilman McDonald: Well I’m looking for your opinion too because a lot of what I vote on is going to be based upon what you tell me. Kate Aanenson: We pointed out the deficiencies. It’s at the minimum for a PUD and the PUD says, you know they could have gone with a different zoning district. They asked for the PUD, the flexibility and the staff’s position based on that criteria, they’re at the minimum. We’re not getting that higher and better and again for the internal circulation and the like, I just don’t think that’s a good way to go. Long term wise for the city. Councilman McDonald: But again those are deficiencies and what we would expect of a PUD is what you just outlined. Something a little bit better that addresses all these issues or the PUD is not going to fly. Okay. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council, staff is recommending denial based on our findings in the report so just want that into the record. Councilman McDonald: That was on the screen too. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Councilman McDonald: So I think it’s very clear what staff is recommending. What I’m trying to get at is how did you arrive at that and how do I make a decision whether I vote yea or nay on this and what am I voting for? I mean again I appreciate the input of staff but I do not vote based upon what staff tells me so we need to get that on the record also. I will use that for my input but I will make an independent decision on whether this is going forward or not so just so everybody knows where I’m coming from on this. I guess, I guess that pretty much covers all the questions I have concerning the site. I would have similar questions for the applicant whenever they come up also. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Are you done Councilman McDonald? Councilman McDonald: For right now. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Councilman McDonald really I think is focusing on the planning part of this whole issue and for me it’s more of a philosophical debate and whether or not, you know what direction we want to go with this as far as if it’s a right fit for our town. If it’s the right direction we want to go and part of my experience, I can’t say I do very well up here all the time and I’ve learned a lot. I have but one thing I’ve learned is that when Paul puts in a road he has a public hearing and we meet with the public and before we get to this point and so there could be 2 or 3 public meetings when it comes to something being proposed and this probably isn’t a question for you. Maybe it’s for the applicant but why wasn’t there ever a public hearing or was there and what is your take on what happened with that? Kate Aanenson: Sure. Well a neighborhood hearing we sometimes do if it’s a development that’s coming in asking for a different request. I think again the comments that we’ve got, we’re trying to keep 21 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 them related to the site plan itself and if the applicant wanted to meet with the neighbors to try to resolve a design. We haven’t, we do that in residential particularly. I don’t think we’ve done it that much in the commercial development. I can’t think of an industrial park. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Well and you know when it comes to a road, we’re proposing to change the road and so I guess when it comes to this, they’re proposing to change something and so I guess I just feel that things go a lot smoother when the most information possible is obtained by those who are participating in the process and so I just, I wasn’t sure who was responsible for making sure that happened. The applicant or City of Chanhassen. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. Staff did not keep the applicant from meeting with the residents or neighbors or businesses. You know it’s always up to the applicant. We do not have a requirement where the applicant has to meet with neighbors or businesses. Sometimes they will do it on their own but we do not have a requirement. Our only requirement was to hold the public hearing at the Planning Commission level. Sometimes we will suggest it but it’s really up to the applicant’s discretion. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Anything else on this? Councilman Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Yes. Mr. Mayor I think that Councilwoman Tjornhom raises a good point and that is that I would assume that any applicant, Walmart or whoever might want to come into town would do some sort of evaluation of the impact that they would have on the community and I recall that one of the representatives from Walmart mentioned that, I think it was Lisa who said that she actually went to some of our retail outlets and talked with some of those citizens so there must have been some input there. Now that might have been farther down the planning process. I want to go back to the property Kate. How, give us a history on this property. When was it active and when was it used for commerce and when did it stop being used for commerce? Kate Aanenson: It’s been vacant for a number of years. Again it was part of the Victory Envelope. Part of a trio of buildings that were put together. Councilman Laufenburger: Originally built in what timeframe, do you know? Kate Aanenson: ’86. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, built in ’86 and how long has it been vacant do you think? From my records the owners of IWCO might be able to say. I have it vacant for several years, yeah. And they’ve leased it. Used it for storage. Had some leasing of the site. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor. Councilman Laufenburger: So. Oh, go ahead. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. Teleplan moved out approximately 6 years ago and since that time Instant Web Companies has a lease arrangement with iStar who is the LLC that owns the property and so, and Instant Web Companies has used this for basically storage and warehouse storage and it has not been used for manufacturing or office for the past 6 years. Councilman Laufenburger: So iStar owns the property? Todd Gerhardt: Correct. 22 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman Laufenburger: So the responsibility of finding a tenant for iStar, or excuse me, for the building is really iStar’s responsibility isn’t it? Todd Gerhardt: A tenant or future owner. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Was iStar made aware of the fact that we zoned it for commercial, community commercial? Kate Aanenson: Yes. I believe so. Councilman Laufenburger: And the time when 6 years ago when it was vacant for the 3 years up til 2009 or so when we zoned it community commercial it was zoned industrial, right? Kate Aanenson: (Yes). Councilman Laufenburger: Did we have a lot of people coming by the City and say can we look at that building? Kate Aanenson: No, but as a general, yeah. No we haven’t. Councilman Laufenburger: Would that be a normal practice or would they, would they come to the City or would they go to the owner? Kate Aanenson: It can come a lot of different ways. Councilman Laufenburger: Alright. That was my last one. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I just want to follow up, a number of my questions have been responded to with the other questions from the council but Ms. Aanenson with regard to the parking ratios that we have and Mr. Oehme with regard to the traffic studies, it’s my sense that the ratio, I think you mentioned, what’s the ratio for commercial parking Ms. Aanenson? Kate Aanenson: 5 per 1,000. Mayor Furlong: 5 spots per 1,000. Kate Aanenson: Square feet, correct. Mayor Furlong: And what is that ratio based upon? I assume it wasn’t arbitrary. Kate Aanenson: No it’s, it’s pretty much standard uses. There’s the International Traffic Manual. There’s all types of standards that you can get from the American Planning Association and those sort of things so it’s a pretty standard number. Mayor Furlong: Okay, but since it’s a per 1,000 square feet of commercial space then it obviously scales based upon the scale of the facility as well. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: The commercial facility. 23 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: And my sense is that that ratio of parking spaces per 1,000 square feet also varies by type of use of a building. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: So whether it’s commercial it might be one ratio, the 5 per 1,000. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Office industrial could be something else. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: Or it is something else? Kate Aanenson: It is. Yes. They’re all different. Mayor Furlong: Okay, and so depending on how that, the use of the facility varies depending upon the number of spaces. Kate Aanenson: Right. Mayor Furlong: Commercial people are going to be coming and going on a regular basis. Customers. Office industrial. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: More people coming in the morning and leaving. Kate Aanenson: Or warehouse storage which is the least amount of parking where it’s mostly storage, correct. Mayor Furlong: And I think the natural progression then Mr. Oehme is that the traffic volumes flow vary too based upon the use and based upon the size of the facility from a particular property. Paul Oehme: Yeah, absolutely. Mayor Furlong: Okay, alright. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for staff at this time? If not then I would invite representatives from the applicant, Walmart or their representatives to come forward. Good evening. Lisa Nelson: Good evening. Good evening. Can everyone hear me okay? Good. My name is Lisa Nelson and I’m with Walmart Public Affairs and I am here with our team tonight to present our new and improved plan for the store. I’m here with all of our folks here, pretty much in the first and second row. All of them from Minnesota except myself. I’m just over the river from Wisconsin. Most of you have seen the Planning Commission meeting or gone through the minutes or the transcript so you know what we said about our corporation at that meeting so I won’t go through all that again. If you have questions about specifics with jobs, wages, benefits, health care, that kind of thing we’d be happy to answer those questions but we were able to get a lot of really good information and feedback from citizens and 24 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Planning Commission members and staff as well at that meeting to revise our plan to make it much better. To make it meet your code and exceed your ordinances and your codes and to really put forward a plan that we think can really improve the area and can be really great for Chanhassen. We do know that your approval tonight is conceptual in nature. It is not a final approval. It’s a concept plan and it’s about the big picture, and that’s really what we were looking to do at the Planning Commission meeting and we have spent a lot of resources to get to where we are tonight because that’s what we were asked and that’s what we’ve delivered tonight. We’ve got a little bit beyond I think what you might require for a concept planned unit development but we don’t mind doing that because we want to make sure that this proposal is the best that it can be. We know that the details will still need your approval. That being said there are two areas that present the biggest challenges to the development of that parcel. Whether we do it or not, under your current plan and that is the building size and the parking, as I think you’re talking about here. We feel that parking in the current plan is sufficient for the use that we’re proposing and we also feel that the building footprint is sized appropriately for this market or trade area if you will. If these are areas where you offer no flexibility then we would need to know that because that’s our plan. This is the building size really is where we need to be and the PUD allows the flexibility for those two issues. For us or any other applicant and in terms of the site functionality, we have done this before and we would not propose a site or a store plan that would not allow us to function safely for our associates and our customers and for our fleet, so we know we can execute this plan successfully and in a very, very safe way. We are seeking to serve our customers in the Chanhassen area, either here or somewhere in the region. We know through leakage at the store that this can be a really successful project. Whether it’s here. Where it’s nearby, we are looking to serve our customers here. That’s our goal. That’s our goal with this proposal and that’s our goal in looking at this market. It’s a really great site and while the parameters of your current plan present a challenge to us, and to you and to any other applicant, we’re here because we believe that you have the vision to see what’s possible and the many benefits that a Walmart development can bring to your community. So with that I’m going to introduce our Land Use Attorney, Sue Steinwall who’s going to introduce the rest of our team so we can go through any of the details and answer any of your questions. And again I apologize I didn’t go through the whole corporate spiel. If you do have questions though we are here and we will answer any of your questions. Sue. Sue Steinwall: Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, my name is Sue Steinwall and I am a land use attorney and I’m at the firm of Fredrikson and Byron in Minneapolis. We’ve represented Walmart I’d say probably about 10 years now on various projects in Minnesota and in Wisconsin. It’s my pleasure to be here this evening and the good news that I have for you is that even though I am a lawyer I promise to be quick about my remarks here. I’m with our architect Jackie Cook-Haxby with SAIC who’s going to answer your questions and point out how this Walmart that we’re proposing is going to be a very attractive building. And also I have our engineers from Kimley-Horn Associates, Will Matzek and Andrew Payne and the back-up row from Kimley-Horn as well in case there are specific questions. Much of what I was going to say actually has been covered through the Q and A between staff and council. Our request is for approval of a concept plan. A concept PUD. Many of the details have yet to be spelled out. Stormwater, traffic. Many of them have been and we’ve been working on this site for quite some time but our request would be that the concept that we, you know receive the guidance and the reviews and the comments from the City as we were expecting from concept PUD approval, and that then we move on for our final planning process. So it’s a two step process. Then the second step basically gives the City the second bite of the apple as it were. Certainly we can, certainly we can, you know to answer one suggestion. You know a neighbor, you know we can do a neighborhood meeting and we certainly have done that before in other communities so during stage 2 we could certainly do, you know meet with the community and provide an opportunity to get more input. We were able to revise our plans based on much of the input that we received in early November. Finally to comment a bit on the kind of the exchange that is expected in a PUD. We are certainly asking for flexibility from certain zoning standards, including the size of the building and parking as Lisa mentioned. In exchange the building is going to be the most attractive Walmart in the state of Minnesota. We are, our client is, has agreed to pay for the 25 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 offsite traffic improvements that were detailed earlier. And I think you know I guess the other thing that I wanted to mention, I guess this is the appropriate time to put this before you but as Lisa mentioned, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t know that there are a lot of folks in the Chanhassen trade area already shopping at Walmart and that this is an area that we would like to serve. Certainly there’s an increase to your tax base but our statistics show that the Eden Prairie store does a land use business with folks from the Chanhassen trade area driving all the way over to Eden Prairie. The statistics that I have is it’s about $10 million dollars a year just in Chanhassen residents alone, but they’re spending it in Eden Prairie so we think that your city as well as other merchants would like to keep the traffic here and keep the dollars in your city. I’m going to ask Jackie Cook-Haxby to walk you through our architectural plan next and then following that Will Matzek will answer your questions and also talk about the revisions to the concept plan that we’ve made to date but certainly it’s an ongoing process. Thanks very much. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Jackie Cook-Haxby: Mayor, council, Jackie Cook-Haxby with SAIC which is based in St. Paul. I however live 1.1 miles from this building right here. Right around the corner so this is my shopping area and I am very proud to present this Walmart. I would be shopping at this Walmart. I do not shop at the Eden Prairie one because I don’t like the traffic over in that area so. This is a Walmart like we have not built here in Minnesota. I can tell you that because we built a lot of them here in Minnesota, both in the last 8 years. This store has significant upgrades to it. Some of them are the glass windows along the front. The normal Walmart store does not have the amount of glass that this store does. It would have the glass entry and a little bit of transparency on either side of the entrance. There would be no other attempt at transparency because that is not part of how Walmart does it business. The majority of the Walmart floor is around the perimeter is a stock room or a freezer/cooler area and your code, Section 20-1068 allows that if that is the case we can take other alternatives to satisfy the architectural requirement for upgrades, which we have done by adding canopies that resemble those along the front of the store. I would argue that the architecture of the store is very similar and picks up concepts from not only the City Hall, the library but some of the newer retail you find along Highway 5. Some of the retail that is west of the Target building. At the time that the Target building was built I was actually a project architect for Target Corporation so the lady in the next cube to me built that, but we have added the extended canopy across the front. We’ve added several or two large planting areas across the front. We have added on the right side, which would be facing Highway 5 as you’re going west, we have added a non-transparent window area. That would be spandrel glass, and by the way some of the glass on the front of the store is also spandrel because of the fact that a lot of it is a storage area or a cooler/freezer area where you’d be looking at the backs of coolers and freezers and stock racks. We have not added that on the north side, nor have we made any attempt on the north side to add transparency. It is partially a LEED, sustainability type issue. That’s facing north. We’re in the north. It’s not a good, actually my house doesn’t even have windows on the north side of it to conserve the energy. And this is a very LEED efficient or a sustainable type store so we have a number of those features within it. The white roof to defeat the heat island effect. We have a number of skylights on the roof that are interlocked with the lights inside the building so that when the sun is very bright outside, the lights, the light use inside the store is almost non-existent except for the non-sales areas where they don’t have the skylights. Then when the dark comes on then the lights come back up very slowly so you really don’t notice the transition. We take the heat that comes off of the refrigeration equipment and that’s used to heat the hot water in the store. All of the toilets and water fixtures are low flow. There are any number of sustainability items within the store and we do our best to make the walls the highest R value that we possibly can as well as the roof to comply with those types of initiatives. So all in all we’ve removed the EIFS from the back of the store. That is not the TRESPA panels that are on the front of the store, which is a high finish, very expensive product that we use for the back of our signs. We have eliminated any integral colored split faced block on the store and it is now all a brick type product. We have added awnings, plyasters. Changed colors. In short it is probably the best looking Walmart in the state of Minnesota. It is nowhere near a prototype. We have far exceeded what 26 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 your code calls for. We have far exceeded what Walmart normally would build and frankly I had to send a guy over to argue it with Walmart central in order to get this approved, which is a very lengthy process too so we believe that we have met and exceeded all of the conditions that were set for in the initial plan review letter. And with that being said, if you have any questions or questions afterward, yeah. Will Matzek will take over the civil issues. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Do you want that on the overhead. If you’d set it, or either way. Or just set it right over the picture by the microphone there. Will Matzek: Sure, we can just start with that I guess. Mayor Furlong: Ms. Hokkanen, could you move the microphone so it’s not over the, I don’t know if we can get the overhead on that Nann. Kate Aanenson: Yep, I got it. Will Matzek: Will Matzek. Mayor Furlong: Good evening. Will Matzek: I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. As far as the site plan goes that we have done a number of improvements to the site plan since we were here before Planning Commission and a great deal of those improvements have been to really focus on conserving the wetland and natural area on the western portion of this site, as well as improve pedestrian connectivity and site access. In getting into a few of those items, you’ll notice that we did improve pedestrian connectivity on this plan. We’ve added a walk connection and stairs connection on the east side on Powers Boulevard certainly to allow for a very good access for pedestrians in that location as well as a main walkway through the center of the store, or through the center of the parking area that will then also connect out to the intersection at Park and Powers Boulevard where we’re proposing a signal with good pedestrian access to improve that area. We’ve also improved our setbacks throughout the entire site. We now exceed ordinances in the front yard of the parking field. We’re at 35 feet or greater as opposed to the requirement of 25 feet and then we meet or exceed around the entire periphery of the site as well and you’ll notice that we have a great deal of trees throughout this site plan, both in the interior parking field as well as the perimeter. City ordinances require around 80 trees to be planted on a site of this size and we’re proposing 180 trees, increasing the canopy on this site from existing conditions at 14% approximately all the way up to 39% based upon the calculations outlined and how you perform those and the city ordinances. And we’ve also certainly concentrated on stormwater as well. We’ve added a rain garden type features and a couple of the parking islands as well as at the front of the site to treat stormwater in those locations on the surface as well as will be providing treatment underground, which is not outlined on the plan here. Just for clarify purposes. We’ve certainly heard much discussion from a parking scenario on the site. We do acknowledge that, and with this site plan are not able to meet the 5.0 ratio. We have a 4.5 at this site. We’ve performed a parking analysis for this site based upon other Walmart’s in the area and based upon that we’ve determined that really a 4.5 will operate sufficiently and well at this site, even on a Black Friday, busiest shopping day condition, and I know there was some discussion about snow storage, concerns of that nature. We do have, we had mentioned you know the green areas that can be used for snow storage but also you know Walmart is more than willing to haul snow off of the site if, when you get a large snow event, that is very common in the retail world. Particularly in metro areas. That’s done in many, many sites and Walmart is more than willing to do that sort of scenario to ensure that there is sufficient parking at this site. No one wants to make sure that there’s enough parking at this site more than Walmart because that would certainly hurt their bottom line. As far as the compact stalls, I know there was some discussion as far as what we are providing versus that it should in low turnover areas. We 27 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 are proposing compact stalls for this site. However they are for associate parking stalls so those folks who would park in the compact stalls will actually be working at the store so they’re not the true customers coming in and out so Walmart, and we feel very comfortable that these compact stalls can work for them at this site and it does function. From a stormwater perspective, as I mentioned we have added the rain gardens. We’re treating stormwater underneath the site as well in chambers. This is very common as well. We’ve done many of these types of stormwater treatment systems and these systems with, that we’ll be incorporating. It actually exceeds city ordinances. I know in the staff report it was outlined that infiltration would be desired to actually infiltrate the stormwater into the ground. If that was a good use we would certainly agree and implement that. However in this case we have very clay soils which do not infiltrate stormwater well and it’s a hydrologic Class D so what we are doing is to the extent that is practical for this site in accordance with the city ordinances, as well as the MPCA requirements, and in fact we’re actually exceeding the stormwater treatment for the site. Existing today there’s over 5 acres of impervious surfaces on this site with, have no treatment at all and so the addition of the treatment system on this site will certainly be an improvement to the conditions. With the natural resources, switch the graphic here. We have certainly been very sensitive to the wetland on the, the natural area on the western portion of this site, in this area here. We have, as I mentioned with our site improvements we’ve actually stayed out of those areas and exceeded the city requirements. Walmart is sensitive to that natural area. We would actually, are more than happy to provide a conservation easement in that area, which certainly will protect those natural resources and is I think certainly a great benefit to the city as well as the watershed in that vicinity. Additionally much of the upland vegetation that is referenced, currently today is actually invasive species as part of this development. We would remove these invasive species on the upland area adjacent to the site and restore them with native species, and you can also see just from the, this aerial overlay that this location here is very, very similar to what’s out there today from an existing pavement area, so we feel that we’ve really done a great deal to conserve those natural resources in the area and in fact be improving them with many of the items that we’re proposing. From a traffic scenario, I do understand that truck access is certainly important. Staff has gone through and discussed a number of concerns related to that. Walmart of course wants a site that functions for them. They do want a site that can get ingress and egress with their trucks and certainly for their customers and so we have designed a site that we have modeled in Autoturn, which is a modeling program. The trucks certainly do, are able to traverse the site and not impede upon the customer’s stalls and so trucks would enter the site here. Traverse the site and go back out. This is very similar to many other retail sites. I think every retail site is a little bit different and so some certainly have more accesses. Some have less. I can show a few other examples just in the metro area that show that this type of scenario does function for other retailers. For instance in Bloomington there’s a Home Depot with one access. As you can see in the outline in red this is how the trucks work and there’s also a Sam’s Club nearby. There’s also just one access with that, at that location. Eden Prairie, a similar scenario to what we have as well with a Costco, larger use. Much like the Sam’s Club and Home Depot, are larger than what we’re proposing here as part of this development. You can see in red that it is very similar. Target here in Vadnais Heights. Also very similar type scenario and there are other ones as well throughout the metro and around the country but these are just a few of the examples I wanted to show. These retailers feel comfortable with this scenario and once again we acknowledge that you know every site is different and so this site has some challenges. We’ve designed it to a point where we feel very comfortable with the access that we have, both internally and externally. And from a traffic standpoint as well, I know there’s discussion about that. That Walmart is willing to fund these traffic improvements for the off sites around this site on Highway 5, Powers and Park. The overall traffic scenario for these improvements, Walmart’s really only responsible for about 25% of that traffic and so in the future as Chanhassen continues to grow out to 2030, these improvements that are proposed as part of the project will help Chanhassen grow for the future. The improvements will be in place and will really make a difference I think as far as handling those types of improvements that would be required, whether Walmart develops here or really anybody else. If there’s any other questions I’d be happy to answer them. Otherwise if you have questions for others on the team, feel free to. 28 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Mayor Furlong: You ready for questions now? Okay. Alright. That’s fine. Any questions for the applicant? Mr. McDonald? Councilman McDonald: Well Mr. Laufenburger wants to. Mayor Furlong: I happened to be looking your way when I saw the hand go up so. Councilman McDonald: Okay, first question I’ve got concerns the PDU. Who’s best suited to answer that? Mayor Furlong: PUD? Councilman McDonald: PUD. Sue Steinwall: I guess I’m Miss PUD. Councilman McDonald: Okay what I’d like to know is, as I had stated, you know this idea of a concept PUD is, I just don’t see them that much and I’ve been doing this for a while. Why did you choose to go that way instead of a PUD and what I’m looking for is that most applicants that come in on a PUD, we give them a lot of advice before it ever goes to the Planning Commission as far as what’s going to be required. What it’s going to take to probably pass it so a lot of things can get ironed out before it even makes it to the Planning Commission. And then before it gets to the council it gets ironed out even more. You’ve got you know fewer things to take care of. What you’re putting us through here is, by the time we get done you’re going to have a PUD because I think to satisfy everybody you’re going to have to answer a lot of detailed questions so I’m wondering why did you start with a concept PUD and we’re going to wind up you know getting pretty close to what I would consider a PUD. Sue Steinwall: That’s a fair question Councilman McDonald. As Ms. Aanenson said it was, you know it was a mutual agreement. I’ve done quite a few of these projects and not every city has the two step process. Our, I have a cough drop, I’m sorry. Councilman McDonald: That’s okay. Sue Steinwall: As an attorney for a client that is frequently you know go, go. Let’s get this done. The concept of doing the concept PUD was not particularly well received by my client but after a lot of back and forth’s with staff we accepted the recommendation that staff gave us and proceeded under you know, proceeded with the concept. We thought we’d get good feedback and then we would proceed to step two. Councilman McDonald: Okay, and I take it by what I’ve seen here that you are willing to go that extra step and really get us toward what we would consider more of a final plan, even though we’re not there yet but. Sue Steinwall: Yep, I mean absolutely. I mean we’ve done quite a bit in the last month between Planning Commission and this meeting tonight and with back and forth and feedback from the City and with staff and further feedback from the community, you know that’s the way we like to develop our stores is with you know in a dialogue situation so yes. Yes, to answer your question. Councilman McDonald: Okay. By the way I use the old cough drop trick myself. That kind of helps you in court to keep your mouth going whenever… 29 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Sue Steinwall: It was getting pretty cottony. Councilman McDonald: …so don’t worry. I perfectly understand. Now in the latest improvements what I read in there is that you’re willing to do an infrastructure improvements. However there’s no dollars put on that. We have an estimate of about $1.5 million. Are you, you know in a position to say yes. That’s what Walmart would sign up for. Sue Steinwall: I think what Walmart would sign up for is those list of 6 improvements. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Sue Steinwall: And if it costs $1.5, so be it. If it costs less than 1.5, all the better. Councilman McDonald: Okay, all the better. And as part of doing anything, if we were to come up with some other things to help improve stuff, you would evaluate that and probably be in favor of again improving the traffic flow, you know if you agree with you know things we come up with. I’m not asking for a commitment. Just you know as a general concept. Sue Steinwall: Yeah, I certainly can’t say you bet, whatever you want but. Councilman McDonald: No, well I’m not asking for a blanket order. And I guess, the other question I’ve got, I’m not sure if you can answer this or if it’s somebody else but let’s talk about the 4.5 versus the 5 parking spots per 1,000 feet. And Ms. Aanenson can correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding was, you could have met that with the first plan where the retaining wall and everything was pushed out a little bit, is that true? Sue Steinwall: I believe that’s not true. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. It never met the parking standards. Councilman McDonald: It never met the parking standards. Sue Steinwall: We were always at 4.5, correct. Councilman McDonald: Okay. And the other question I guess I would have, because again you know Walmart’s a very savvy company from the consumer standpoint and you know knows how to I think address consumer needs. Why didn’t you approach the City and again hold some meetings? I mean this is not the first city where you’ve had a problem with yeah, anti Walmart. I know in St. Paul when the store went up there, there was a lot of problems. The one on University. Sue Steinwall: Oh I worked on that one. That was an old K-Mart and. Councilman McDonald: Right. Sue Steinwall: Right. Councilman McDonald: But what I mean is that within the community there are sometimes a problems you have to overcome. I would think that that would have been on your radar. Why didn’t you set something up? Did someone tell you not to? Was it you know advice that you don’t have to worry about 30 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 it? I’m just curious as to because that’s something standard that a lot of people do and I advise a lot of people when they come in here, you’ve got to sell the town first and then come and try to sell City Council and the Planning Commission. Sue Steinwall: Well hindsight’s always 20/20 and I think that the, you know we were aware coming in that we had a lot of folks from Chanhassen shopping at Walmart already so I think that we were, I know I was surprised by the turnout that we had at Planning Commission. We got here late. We didn’t have a place to sit so we were all surprised by the community interest in this particular project. If we had to do it all over again, would we have done things differently? Yes, for sure but, and a neighborhood meeting would have been a great idea but it was you know, it was our decision and we you know chose to move forward based on what we, based I would, you know based primarily on the shopping statistics that we had in our pocket. Councilman McDonald: Okay well I take hindsight being 20/20 and lessons that you’ve learned, going forward before we ever got to any kind of a final plan you would hold neighborhood meetings and be receptive to at least. Sue Steinwall: Yes, we can commit to that. Councilman McDonald: Okay. I guess at this point Mr. Mayor that’s all the questions I currently have. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other questions, Councilman Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: I do. Ms. Steinwall, I appreciate the straight forward way in which you answered the questions so I’ll make these easy. You have how many discount stores in Minnesota? Sue Steinwall: Oh, that’s not easy for me. Lisa? Councilman Laufenburger: 43, is that right? Lisa Nelson: Yeah, 49 supercenters, 13 discount stores and 13 Sam’s Clubs. Mayor Furlong: If you could come up and speak to the microphone. That way people at home can hear as well, I’m sorry. Thank you Ms. Nelson. Lisa Nelson: Okay, we have 49 supercenters. We have 13 stores and we have 13 Sam’s Clubs. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, how would characterize Eden Prairie? Is that a store or a supercenter? Lisa Nelson: Eden Prairie would be called a supercenter, yes. Mayor Furlong: Let me also ask you to move to the podium. We have a camera. I don’t know if we can pick it up the view there so, that’s just for showing documents on the table, thank you. Councilman Laufenburger: So Eden Prairie would be a supercenter. How would you describe the Chanhassen facility? Supercenter or discount store? Lisa Nelson: We’re trying to get away from the vernacular of the word supercenter. All of our stores are Walmart stores so eventually we hope that all of our stores will have a full offering of what you would find in a Walmart store which would be grocery, pharmacy, and general merchandise. 31 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Can you explain this term leakage a little bit more? When I think of leakage, my retail background leakage is when things leave the store and they shouldn’t be. Lisa Nelson: That’s shrinkage. Councilman Laufenburger: Oh shrinkage, excuse me. Lisa Nelson: I got ya. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, so what’s leakage Lisa? Lisa Nelson: Leakage is a community number that shows how many dollars are leaving your community to go to another community and being spent there. So about 70% of our transactions at Walmart are used in the form of payment with a 5 digit zipcode on them. Councilman Laufenburger: Credit card, check. Lisa Nelson: Yep. Credit card or check, about 70%. So it’s more or less depending on the area and then we can see, at each store we can do a printout where the dollars are coming from so that’s where that number comes from. That leakage number. Councilman Laufenburger: So I believe Ms. Steinwall said $10 million dollars in sales annually at the Eden Prairie store are being spent by people who register with a zipcode in Chanhassen, is that correct? Lisa Nelson: That is correct. Councilman Laufenburger: Here’s your perfect opportunity to fudge on that if you want Lisa. Lisa Nelson: No, no, no. I’m not going to fudge the number. That number came from our attorney for a reason but that is mainly proprietary information. Those sales. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, I won’t share it with anybody… Lisa Nelson: But we know customers are leaving Chanhassen to go to Eden Prairie. They’re leaving to go to even Shakopee so, and that’s a valuable number for you to just know how many dollars we’re capturing of your market anyway and if those dollars could be spent here, those folks would not be contributing to the traffic problem on 5. They wouldn’t be using fuels. They would be supposedly right, saving money in their community and putting it back into their local economy, and that’s what we’re hoping to do. Councilman Laufenburger: Well you opened the door for us to ask questions about Walmart so, I’ve heard this phrase twice. Keeping dollars in the city. How do you keep the dollars in the city? You just explained keep those dollars being spent here. But if they’re spent at Walmart, how do we keep them in the city? Lisa Nelson: Well thank you for asking that question. That gives me the opportunity to talk about some of the benefits of having a Walmart in your community. When, of course when we build a store we’re going to create jobs and a lot of the folks that are going to work at that store are going to come from here and we’re looking. Audience: No. 32 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Mayor Furlong: Please, let’s… Lisa Nelson: In our efforts to hire folks, in our efforts to hire folks we can certainly make an effort to target folks from this area by using local chambers. Local job centers, that kind of thing, but there’ll be 250 to 300 associates that work at this store. So they of course will be earning money that will be put back into the economy. We’ll be paying property taxes. We’ll be collecting sales taxes on behalf of the State of Minnesota which will be distributed again in state aides back to your community hopefully, and then of course. Councilman Laufenburger: We don’t count on that but please continue. Lisa Nelson: No, I wouldn’t either. I wouldn’t either if I were you. And then also we’re helping your customers save money so when your local family can save dollars at a Walmart store, and there is a study by Global Insight, which is a company that looks at the grocery basket. It looks how much the average family of 4 can save on groceries. We show that we can save a family of 4 $2,500 a year by just the general basket of needs that every family would have. Toilet paper. Basic food, that kind of thing. So if every family can spend that much, and it might be more here, we don’t know but that family will have more money to spend back in the local economy. Going out to eat. Going to the Dinner Theater. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. The statement was made that you’ve built 8 Walmarts in Minnesota in the last few years, did I hear correctly? Jackie Cook-Haxby: No, I’ve worked on Walmarts for 8 years. Councilman Laufenburger: Oh. How many new stores, Walmart stores have been built in Minnesota in the last 5 years? Lisa Nelson: Well I’d have to check but we do have several active projects right now. We have Brooklyn Center. We have Roseville, Lakeville, Burnsville, Brooklyn, did I say Brooklyn? Blaine. Brooklyn Center. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, but none that have been completed in the last 5 years as far as. Lisa Nelson: Most of, many of them have been approved and are under, some of them are under construction. Councilman Laufenburger: It’s interesting, from the time that an approval is given, how long until you open the doors? Lisa Nelson: Usually about a year. It takes us about a year depending on the site. Now don’t hold me to the fire on that because at this site we have demolition to do and site work that needs to be done, quite significant because of the grade is as your city staff outlined so there is some work that needs to be done there. I wouldn’t be the best person to answer that question. Councilman Laufenburger: Going back to this keeping dollars in the community, I did some simple math. 13 point, excuse me. 14.5 billion I think was the number that you quoted Minnesota sales, is that correct? Lisa Nelson: Correct. 33 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman Laufenburger: I just divided it by 70, that’s roughly $20 million dollars a store. Is that a reasonable number per store? Lisa Nelson: It all depends on the market and I have Sharon Power here who is our regional manager who would give you more information about sales at specific stores but let’s say $20 million. Councilman Laufenburger: Just follow my math here. Let’s say $20 million. Lisa Nelson: On the low end. Councilman Laufenburger: And you said roughly 70% is credit card or checks so that means 30% of your transactions are cash. So what local bank in Chanhassen is going to receive the benefits of those cash deposits every night? Lisa Nelson: That’s a good question. That is a good question. I’m stumped. Councilman Laufenburger: What local bank in Eden Prairie receives the cash deposits every night? Lisa Nelson: From Walmart? Councilman Laufenburger: In Eden Prairie. Would Sharon know that? Lisa Nelson: I’m not sure. I could find out. Sharon Power: I could find out for you. I don’t know that level of detail but we can certainly find out. Councilman Laufenburger: We’re going to vote inside of an hour. Lisa Nelson: Let me say one more thing sir. That in terms of community impact, in all of the communities where we have Walmart stores, we give back to the community in a large, in a big, big way. Not only in associate giving and store giving through the, through programs that we allow to happen on our property, but also through cash donations and if you go to any of our Walmart stores there’s a board in the front of the store, as you’re check out and it shows what local organizations have received those, and we’re really, that’s something we’re really proud about at Walmart is how much we give back to the communities that we call home. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Mr. Mayor I think I have just a couple more questions. In the letter st dated November 1, which I think was from Mr. Matzek and there was discussion about the size of this store. Now I believe you said there’s two lynch pins. Footprint and parking, correct? Lisa Nelson: Correct. th Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. So I found an article on, an article dated October 14 and it was, of this year and it was quoting some Walmart executives and it talked about the different concepts that Walmart has. Marketside, which is I think about a 16,000 square foot footprint. An express store. About a 15,000. A neighborhood market, about 42,000 and then it identified this next level which was a discount store about 108 to 120,000. And in Mr. Matzek’s letter it said that this footprint is smaller than most of the new stores that are being developed but in this article it said, and I’m quoting the article. Majority of Walmart new stores up to 120 this year and 135 in fiscal 2013 will continue to be supercenters. New supercenters are set to be 90,000 to 120,000 square feet. Supercenters used to average 185,000 square feet so I’m trying to understand the validity of the statement that this is smaller than most 34 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 of the other stores. It doesn’t sound like it based on the information which was quoted from the Walmart executive. Lisa. Lisa Nelson: Right. Most of the stores we’re building in this area are about 120 to 150 and we’ve really stopped building stores bigger than 150. There really aren’t, you can’t find any of the 220, 220,000 square foot stores anymore. There is a trend in our company to build stores smaller and this is, this definitely reflects that. That 117,000 square foot footprint that this store reflects the smaller store formats that we are doing nationwide. Now what you’re seeing there with the marketside and with all those other formats that we’re trying out, we have stores that we’re building in Chicago that we can’t build anything bigger than 16,000 square feet and it really is more like a convenience grocery store that fits into that footprint and serves that public. In this area, and there’s a very comprehensive metric that our real estate team goes through to figure out what is, what is the appropriate store size for this market and the appropriate store size for this market, so that you can have the grocery, pharmacy and the general merchandise, what we could sell here, is about 120,000 square feet. So that’s the size that we’d like to build here and the smaller format’s generally for more urban, dense areas. Now we’re trying all sorts of things all over the country and dabbling with smaller store formats but this market here, because of the way that it’s situated and the trade area that it’s in, 120 is appropriate and that was come up through a metric that is very, been very successful at Walmart. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. And I, just one last question Mr. Mayor. I think the most recent correspondence indicated that a garden center or drive thru was removed. Was that part of the original concept? Lisa Nelson: I’m seeing from our architect correct. Councilman Laufenburger: It was. And how many square foot did that remove from the original presentation then? Mayor Furlong: If you could come to the podium please ma’am. Kate Aanenson: I don’t think it was ever on there myself. Lisa Nelson: And it’s not that significant. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Councilman Laufenburger: So Ms. Aanenson says it was never on there. Kate Aanenson: It’s never, this floor plan from the original application has never wavered and I’ve never seen an entrance or anything to the. Jackie Cook-Haxby: No. We never formally submitted that. When we initially came in and talked about it we had that on there but we never really presented it to you. It’s about 9,000 square foot. It’s not a change in this particular response. Councilman Laufenburger: So this is, the square footage of this store is no different than what was presented at the Planning Commission meeting? Jackie Cook-Haxby: That is correct. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct, yeah. 35 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, thank you. That’s all I have Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions? Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have one simple question for Lisa. After all the questions you’ve had from the Planning Commission and from this council talking about planning and my question’s basic and simple. Walmart saw this parcel of land and you decided to come here tonight and present this to us. Why us and why this parcel of land? Because it’d be easy for you to go somewhere else so why did you choose Chanhassen? Lisa Nelson: Well I was not the one who chose Chanhassen. We do have our broker here but I can tell you when we look for available land to develop, there’s a lot of factors that go into that and one of those things is where can we be successful and where is retail appropriate and where is there a willing seller and a willing buyer and what does the market dictate. It is dictated mainly by the market and what your zoning will allow and from our analysis we would not be pursuing this today if we did not think that a PUD was appropriate or that what we wanted to do on this site could work and be functional from our operational perspective. So, and if you want to add anything to that Mike. Mike Sims: Yeah. Be happy to. Lisa Nelson: Mike actually selected the land. Mike Sims: I work with Walmart Real Estate Manager. I’m Mike Sims, President of Mid-America Real Estate. I handle Minnesota for Walmart. To Lisa’s point, the growth that had been occurring in Chanhassen obviously in the west side metro until the last 4 years when we saw a complete stoppage of residential growth but just the fact that it’s an underserved trade area and it captures surrounding markets as well and just the site characteristics of the property along Highway 5 and the retail synergy that is to the north so in our opinion this was just a very strategic market that is underserved. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Just a question regarding the, and this may be for Mr. Matzek. The parking and traffic flow, and I guess I’m just curious with regard to the traffic flow in this particular site. Given the size of the facility that’s being proposed with effectively only one right/left entrance and egress and the other is a right-in/right-out. Given that I, now I’m going to dabble in a traffic study and I know I’m going to screw something up but it looked like that most of the traffic for this site with the traffic flow is coming off of Highway 5 and certainly off of Powers Boulevard. Is that, my memory correct there? Will Matzek: Yeah, that’s correct. Mayor Furlong: I guess my question is to you, and I certainly understand that from the applicant’s standpoint you don’t want a site that isn’t going to function for your business. I understand that. At the same time from a traffic study standpoint, is there enough? Is this, is this functional for this size building given that if most of the traffic is coming off of 5 and off of Powers Boulevard, I’m going to assume that most of it is also going back to 5 and to Powers and so how does that flow? They can come in. They have two right in’s but there’s only one way to turn left out of that and just looking at the site plan they’re coming down an aisle with some of the parking coming right on it. Help me understand from a functionality standpoint how this is going to work. 36 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Will Matzek: As far as the one access point, full access point, we certainly did a traffic analysis that was reviewed by certainly city staff as well as their consultant and they generally concurred with our findings but we found that the level of service at both of those access, ingress and egress points operated very well at a level of service A or B at both of those locations. And as far as you know folks becoming accustomed to you know going to the full access point, that’s very typical as far as folks understanding you know that that’s where you go to you know make your full movement to leave the site, and we can accommodate that through signage. There’s many other retail sites that have this kind of configuration where you have just one or even 1 1/2 access points and folks become very accustomed to that, as everyone is mentioning. That folks in Chanhassen we’re anticipating will shop this store certainly repeatedly with good experiences and so we would anticipate this to function very well. We do not anticipate there being an issue, and our traffic study had outlined that really there’ll be only 4 right out’s per hour going out of that right-in/right-out so very minimal traffic will be leaving the site through the right out. Mayor Furlong: So if only 4 are going right out then all the rest of the traffic is doing a left out. Will Matzek: Yes, that’s correct generally speaking I believe. Yeah, Brian Smallkowski, our traffic engineer is also here. He can probably answer a little more in detail if you’d like but that is the case. Mayor Furlong: No, I appreciate the answer. Thank you. Will Matzek: Sure. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for the applicant? Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Well I have a question Mr. Mayor. Is anyone from Instant Web Company here to speak on this? Mayor Furlong: That I don’t know. There was a letter from Instant Web Company in our packet. Councilman McDonald: Right. Okay then I guess. Will Matzek: There was a representative from IWCO that was here but it looks like he’s left. Councilman McDonald: Wow, just when the fun gets going. Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions then for, follow up questions for staff? Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah I do have one for staff. Kate or Paul, there was a comment about offering, to offer a conservation easement. Can you just explain what does that do and is it of any value? Kate Aanenson: I’m not sure. Councilman Laufenburger: I realize I’m asking you to make a judgment. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, it may or may not have any value. It’d be their responsibility to make sure that it’s protected and kept clean or they can give it to the City or make it our responsibility to make sure that yeah, it’s maintained so. Councilman Laufenburger: And what invasive species are there? 37 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Kate Aanenson: Probably buckthorn probably the biggest one out there but there may be some other as far as the survey goes. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. And then I think the last question I have for staff is, Mr. McDonald raised the question very clearly and that is, is in fact this concept PUD, is this a final decision? Kate Aanenson: Let’s talk about process again. Councilman Laufenburger: Please. Kate Aanenson: We’ll go back a little bit. So if the applicant would have came in the underlying zoning, which was they could request, it would need a significant amount of variances and staff was reluctant to give those variances so the only other track for them would be to go through a concept PUD and again the concept PUD is really to have a discussion but because the traffic seemed to be a critical issue, that needed to be more developed because we were at if we wouldn’t have got comments from MnDOT or Carver County, we may not have even taken it back to you. It would have been such that they would chosen to say no, we’re not going to go any further with that. At that point we tried to have the dialogue but obviously there’s been a division in the discussion of kind of where the concept is going and then so they’ve gone even further on the concept to try to refine it so it really moved beyond just a concept discussion of what we usually see in a concept level. It’s really evolved into more to try to respond to some of the questions that kind of move. Again the staff’s position on that concept is that we’re expecting something different and that was where our recommendation came from. Councilman Laufenburger: Is the cost to the applicant for a, just a PUD, is the cost and the application fee and anything they’ve paid to the City, is that any different with a concept? Kate Aanenson: No. The cost for the review isn’t the same. It’s their cost of spending a lot of the engineering and that sort of thing and actually the traffic study and a lot of the work that they’ve put into it is their cost. Again it’s kind of a little bit beyond what we would see for a typical concept. Councilman Laufenburger: Well as Councilman McDonald has pointed out, it seems to me that they’ve spent a, I don’t do development like Walmart does but it sounds like they’ve spent a lot of money to try to figure out whether this would work and their conclusion was that it does. Kate Aanenson: Right, well. Councilman Laufenburger: That’s what it appears like anyway. Kate Aanenson: Well I think again now, now we’ve kind of split because the staff was concerned again based on the parking ratio. If we keep going back to their 4.5 but we believe it’s more an effective ratio of probably closer to 3. Maybe 3 1/4. Councilman Laufenburger: Especially considering, albeit yes they’ll take the snow away. Kate Aanenson: Again talking about circulation. Conflicting traffic movement with truck circulation. Those sort of things. The loading in the back. Conflicting with turn movements. Whether it’s employees or not. The compromise of the compact parking, which helps them get to that 4.5 so if you looked at that, if it wasn’t compact the effect would be closer to the 3.2. Again we have no cross access parking which we do in similar situations downtown, and most of the business districts downtown. Councilman Laufenburger: Like Target. 38 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Kate Aanenson: Byerly’s. Councilman Laufenburger: M&I Bank, Byerly’s. Kate Aanenson: Even on Villages on the Pond, they all have cross access agreements so it’s a little bit more challenging on this site and I think that’s why we said you demonstrate to the city’s satisfaction that you can make it work and our point is we’re saying we still think that it’s at the minimum at best in some deficiencies. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. So back to my original question, where does this go after the concept PUD, if it’s approved tonight? Kate Aanenson: They would still have to come back to a public hearing at the Planning Commission. That would be the full blown engineering plans. Stormwater calculations. All the street designs. All that. All the civil engineering. Detailed architectural plans and more specifics. Specific landscaping plans, and all that so. Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you Kate. That was the last question I had Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Other questions. Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: If I could follow up on that question then. In order to get to the PUD and get back to the Planning Commission, they would need to work with staff, is that correct Ms. Aanenson? Kate Aanenson: If it was to go through another level. Councilman McDonald: Like the next stage would be to submit a full blown PUD and they would need to work with staff in order to put that together? Kate Aanenson: Correct. Councilman McDonald: And as part of that, you would still have the opportunity for input to make changes, is that correct? Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. It still would have to meet city ordinance. Again the goal here is to give them guidance. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions for staff or for the applicant? No. With that then, without objection we’ll close the public record and bring it back to council for comment. Thoughts and comments. Mr. Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Mayor. First of all I want to give high regard to Walmart for bringing your team here. I expect Ms. Power maybe will have an answer for me a little bit later on that question, okay. But I respect you for doing what obviously is a difficult task in preparing everything that you need to so, and I thank you for regarding Chanhassen in much the same way that 23,000 citizens of Chanhassen regard it as well. As a wonderful place to live, shop, raise a family. But I want to say a special congratulations to the citizens. Wendy you chose not to speak tonight but I know that you and your organization of Chanhassen First mobilized in incredible ways using technology and I just applaud 39 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 you on all of that. My email has been active. As of 5:00 when I closed it down today, 126 emails. A number of phone conversations and 50 plus conversations in the grocery lines, as you pointed out so clearly Chanhassen cares. The Chanhassen citizens care about the community so I just applaud that. As much as I would like to evaluate this based on many ancillary things like is Walmart a good citizen or not a good citizen? Will they bring the right jobs? Will they not bring the right jobs? Fortunately I don’t have to make that decision. My decision is based on the validity of this plan and how it fits our comprehensive plan and as Ms. Aanenson has pointed out for my perspective, there’s 9 criteria that were established for a concept PUD, and I just want to re-state just preliminarily that the use of the PUD zoning allows for a greater variety of uses, internal transfer of density, construction phasing and a potential for lower development costs. In exchange for this enhanced flexibility, which Walmart chose to take advantage of, the development plan must result in a significantly higher quality and more sensitive proposal than would have been the case with the other more standard zoning district such as Community Commercial. And it is the applicant’s responsibility to demonstrate that the City’s expectations will be realized as evaluated against the intent of the PUD and the 9 specific standards so I’m just, Mr. Mayor indulge the council for just a second here. I’m going to kind of give a grade on these 9 criteria if you don’t mind. Preserve desirable site characteristics. I would call that a minimum. Yes, I understand that they’re going to add trees for canopy but they’re also going to take down some trees that have been there a long time and so I would say meets minimum requirements. Number 2 is effective land use open space and again I would call that a minimum. Number 3, high quality design and building architecture. With all respect to Jackie, I certainly appreciate what you’re saying, though the other 49 stores in the state of Minnesota may not agree with you that this is the most beautiful one but from my standpoint I look at yes, the outside of the building. Façade transparency. Minimum requirement on landscaping. Setback. Parking at least 10% below requirements. No compact for high turnover parking. Loading berths do not comply. I would call number 3, high quality design and building architecture deficient. Number 4. Sensitive development of transitional areas. Again I would say that’s a minimum so we’ve got 2 minimums and one deficiency. 5, consistent with the comp plan. The planning director has said that it’s guided for commercial, community commercial in the comp plan and yes this is community commercial, but from my perspective that footprint which Lisa is looking for and can’t be compromised, that’s a little bit outside of bounds so I would say that’s a comply. Number 6, parks and open spaces. I would call that a minimum. Number 7, housing. I don’t think you’re going to build any houses on this property, is that correct Lisa so that does not apply. Number 8, energy conservation. I read closely what you’re doing in the building and Jackie your comments are making it a LEED compliant building. I think that’s great and I think the majority of the benefit will accrue to Walmart. Lower cost water. Lower cost electricity. Nothing wrong with that. There will be public benefit but mainly it’s to benefit Walmart. I would say that’s comply and maybe even more than comply. Traffic area. The fact that Walmart is prepared to finance all the costs, and by the way Ms. Steinwall you were prepared to commit to the neighborhood meetings. Why couldn’t you commit $2 million dollars in traffic improvements? Sue Steinwall: Because I like my job. Councilman Laufenburger: But we do have a million and a half so let’s say that’s a comply. So of that, of those 9 I’ve got 1, 2. Two what I would call comply. One is not applicable and then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are meet minimum requirement and one is highly deficient and from my standpoint, I don’t think that satisfies my requirement of the applicant demonstrating that the City’s expectations for higher quality. Significantly higher quality, more sensitive proposal is demonstrated. And what I’m wondering about that is, why would Walmart go to all this expense and work without striving to satisfy a high quality, more sensitive proposal. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other thoughts. Comments. Councilwoman Tjornhom. 40 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you. Thank you for your comments Denny. I thought they were interesting and so I think you did your homework. When we go back to the start of all this, that’s where I’m looking at it I guess. First of all I want to say that I’ve been on the council for 7 years and we’ve lived through many issues. Many, many issues but this is the one and only time I can think of where I have received so much feedback and so much, so many comments and suggestions and pleadings for saying please don’t vote for whatever, and so I want you to know that, I mean this is a citizen representative body here tonight where we represent you and I understand that. But I also represent the city of Chanhassen and so when I heard that there was a store coming in and we were going to have a tax base and we were going to have jobs and, probably not the type of jobs that we all have or want to have but they were socioeconomic jobs where a teenager could get a job or a senior citizen could get hired. That kind of made my heart go pitter patter. I thought you know we need jobs and we need income and we need a healthy economy. But at the same time you know is the right fit for our community and so then tonight when I asked Kate Aanenson about the zoning in 2009, how it changed and if there had been any offers during that time or any interest in the parcel and she says no. That tells me that one, of course the economy is bad but also maybe it’s not zoned correctly. You know maybe we need to go back and look to see what we need to do as a council to make that parcel viable that we can find something that will compliment our downtown, and I’m not saying it’s this project. But I’m saying that as a council member I look at what’s healthiest for our economy and for our citizens and so is the land not zoned appropriately. Is there something we need to look at? Is there something keeping other businesses from not coming into it? If everyone’s following me what I’m saying, that maybe we need to go back once again to the Planning Commission and look at it again and say is this working? I asked Walmart why they’re here tonight because they obviously don’t fit in this parcel of land and they said it. It’s because we’re a viable community. We’re a healthy community and we’re spending, what was it? $10 million dollars in Eden Prairie and I mean we should be spending that here. We should be spending that here in our businesses and our stores. That creates a healthy downtown. We talk about a lifestyle center out on 212 and that worries me sometimes because I don’t want people going out there and that area developing when we should be concentrating on our downtown because our businesses are what brought us here today and so I would propose that we table all of this. We roll it back and we re-evaluate where we are with the zoning and if it’s pertinent to today and where we want to go as a city. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Well so is there a motion on the table then? Councilwoman Tjornhom: I would make a motion to table it so we can study it further, the zoning and to see if it is even something we should look at but I think this is happening so fast. This came in in October. It went to the Planning Commission in 4 hours and now it’s here and this is a huge decision because if we deny this, then we have to deny it for everybody and if there’s an opportunity that comes in that is good for us, then we can’t go that route so I want to make sure before we say yea or nay to anything we are very confident that we are doing the right thing and so that’s my perspective and where I’m coming from on this issue. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Did you make a motion to table at this point? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yes, I make a motion to table it. Mayor Furlong: Okay, there’s a motion to table. Is there a second? Councilman McDonald: I’ll second the motion. 41 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded to table. That’s non-debatable. We’ll proceed with the vote. Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to table Planning Case 2011-11 for Walmart. Councilwoman Tjornhom and Councilman McDonald voted in favor. Mayor Furlong and Councilman Laufenburger voted against. The motion failed with a tie vote of 2 to 2. Mayor Furlong: The motion receives 2-2 so it is not agreed to so let’s continue with our discussion at this time. Councilman McDonald: Okay, well I also look at this from the standpoint of you know we made a decision that this part of town needed to have some kind of commercial retail in it. We rezoned it. We held public meetings. We discussed it. We looked at what was going to be viable to help our downtown. This store will do that because what it will do, it will bring further development to an area that we’ve been trying to get developed and will put in place all the infrastructure that we need to develop that area at no cost to the citizens of this city and that is significant because at some point we’re going to have to pony up those costs if we want to see anything happen. I had hoped to hear from the owner of the property because they did send us a letter pretty much saying that they have done everything they can to help promote that site. To get someone in there. To rent it. To sell it. To have someone to take it over and there are no takers. You’re hurting a good company. A lot of the emails I got concerned about how we need to take care of companies within this town. Instant Web is a very core company within this town. They’ve been here for a long time. Provide a lot of jobs and they do contribute to the community so I have to listen to them whenever they tell me that this is an opportunity that has come along that you know serves the community. They are good stewards of the community and again it takes care of a problem for them. Maybe it saves a couple of jobs. Everybody’s in favor of us continuing to have employment, manufacturing. That’s what Instant Web does so I think it accomplishes that goal. I do have concerns though about it and my biggest concern is definitely the traffic. I brought up the whole thing about the right out. I’m not in favor of that because I know the problems that we’ve had with the drug store down on Galpin. CVS and the other areas and we’re not going to put a police officer down there to give tickets to U turns but the problem that it creates is those people coming out the western exit that do want to turn left, we’re going to create a problem. I think there’s solutions to that and I believe that staff, maybe with input from council and also with further discussions can resolve that, and at that point I think I would feel a lot better about the site. The internal movements that Ms. Aanenson brought up, I am sensitive to those and she’s got a point so I think that’s also an area that needs to be looked at. As far as the other aspects of it, as Mr. Laufenburger has stated, what our decision kind of comes down to is, is it good for the City? Does it fit with the comprehensive plan? Do we get enough out of this to make it attractive for the City to go and approve this? Even with an approval tonight this is not a done deal and it will have to come back again with a PUD which would have to address all of those issues. I mean a lot’s been said about a concept PUD versus a PUD and a lot of individuals have concern because of the lack of detail. That’s what a concept PUD is. We got what we asked for. I think now what we’re asking for is you have to give us more detail. We’re interested but you know we’re not ready to you know commit at this point. I just believe that there are enough good things about this for it to go forward to get to a detailed plan that can be further evaluated by the Planning Commission and by City Council and then at that point to see if it fits. I realize this is not the best fit on this site but again after 6 years, nobody’s coming to this site. We have no place else to develop to the western end of this town except through this corridor. The land to the north across 5 is privately owned and it is not going to be developed so there is no hope there that any of that is going to be available for development. In order for the downtown area to thrive we need anchors on 5. We need to draw people to this area. This will do it. Next week we’re going to dedicate a parking garage behind the Dinner Theater. That is put there again to help draw people to the downtown area. To also encourage development of the downtown area and to redevelop that part of downtown so that we have more shops, pedestrian ways, and things that will again attract people to 42 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 downtown Chanhassen. You can’t ignore $10 million dollars a year and you can’t ignore the amount of traffic that something like this brings here. I’ve evaluated all this stuff and I’ve looked at all the arguments of how we’re going to kill businesses. I don’t believe it. You can laugh but you need to show me the studies. You’re not going to affect Target. Target competes with Walmart head to head. They do quite well. They don’t need our help. Office Max is the same way. They’re competing with Target. They’re competing with a lot of other stores. They do quite well. Again a business knows how to compete. That’s their job. That’s why Walmart’s looking at this spot and I think we benefit greatly by having something like this but again until I see a final PUD, I’m not willing to vote yea. I’m just willing to vote fine, spend the time. Spend the money. You need to talk with staff and there are some deficiencies that we have identified that need to be addressed before you’re going to get a final PUD through. That’s where I’m at. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilman Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah Mr. Mayor, I think Ms. Power might have gotten an answer to my question, is that correct? Sharon Power: Yes. Councilman Laufenburger: The question I asked is what local bank in Eden Prairie receives the cash proceeds at the end of every day. Sharon Power: US Bank is the one that our Eden Prairie store goes to. Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you very much. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. I appreciate the thoughts and comments. I also want to start out by recognizing and thanking the Walmart team and representatives for coming and for all the work that you did. When I hear that the concept PUD is intended to make it easier and not quite the expense and then I also hear that you put, had to go through a lot of that anyway, I want to just extend our thanks and appreciation for the work that you did in answering the questions and sometimes you know these projects are like onions. You peel back one layer and you’ve got another one that raises more questions so thank you for all your time and effort. I also want to recognize and thank all the citizens that have been involved and have gained an interest and perhaps opened up the comprehensive plan for the first time, or for at least the first time in a while and looked at the thoughts and comments and everything that has gone into that. Our Planning Commission as well and city staff, I really appreciate all their efforts on this. It is everyone that’s been involved in the process. Sometimes this public process can seem long. It can seem awkward. It can seem cumbersome but ultimately it’s a process that is intended to be inclusive and to get everything out on the table and I think that has been accomplished here. Whether or not individually we may agree or disagree with the outcome, I think it’s clear that the public process here has been an open and complete process for the application and that’s our goal and objective. Our evaluation here as a council, similar to that at the Planning Commission was not about who was making the application but whether or not the application itself was consistent with the comprehensive plan. Whether it made the zoning ordinances. If there, and whether or not it met the PUD requirements. Ultimately, from a comprehensive plan standpoint you’ve heard talk about community commercial tonight as a zoning, or a guidance that was created with our update in the 2008 comprehensive plan. That comprehensive plan again is a 2030 comprehensive plan so every 10 years the city will update the comprehensive plan. Look at land use. Parks. Transportation. Open space. Natural preserves. Every 10 years but we’re always looking out 20 plus years ahead so the current comprehensive plan that we’re talking about is a 2030 comprehensive plan and in 8 years the council and Planning Commission will update a 2040 plan but at this point it’s a 2030 plan, and it’s a plan. It’s a, it says here’s our vision collectively as a community of 43 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 how we want to see our city grow and develop and the recognition of the need for more commercial activities was one of the aspects that came out of that planning process back in 2008-2009 timeframe and it was one that had citizens involved. There were many open houses. A lot of the businesses were involved. It was a collective desire to move forward and this community commercial was part of that. The intentions then of what that community commercial meant really comes out through the zoning and one of the aspects that we heard here tonight was the, one of the components of that zoning is the size of buildings that we saw as a city. That we saw as a community. What was the intention of this community commercial, and that was for building sizes 15,000 to 64,000 I believe. We’ve heard tonight about the concept PUD. What a PUD’s supposed to provide in terms of higher level of, higher quality of development and more sensitive. You know the onus sometimes legally is on different parties. In this case it’s on the part of the applicant to demonstrate that they have achieved and exceeded the various points that are required from the, for the PUD or in this case concept PUD. And I do again want to thank Walmart, the applicant for listening at the Planning Commission. Hearing those comments by the commissioners and by the citizens as well in terms of updating the plan. Practically I think that there are still significant deficiencies with regard to the application relative to the PUD standards and I think that’s a challenge. With regard to the applicant’s offer to mitigate some of the off-site traffic issues, we really appreciate that. I think that’s important and is consistent with what we see but I’m still very concerned with the challenges on site. The parking deficiencies for me. I think some of the challenges off-site on the roads with regards to traffic flow are in large part because of the size of the proposed development and I think too, with the on-site issues for traffic and traffic flow parking they’re also in large part a function of the size of the proposed development. Long term our comprehensive plan, as I said, it’s a 2030 plan. It’s not a 2013 plan. I think that over the years it’s been our experience as a city, as a community that following the plan has created a lot of success and I have seen and we’ve seen many examples of that. There have been opportunities to change the plan. To modify it over the years. There needs to be a compelling reason to do so in my opinion. The responding to the applicant that happens to be in front is always a, it’s always important that we give them full thoughtful consideration but if they don’t meet it then I think again it’s on them to justify that there needs to be a compelling reason to change. One of my concerns, and I appreciate Councilwoman Tjornhom’s thoughts and comments about the possible need to review some of the aspects of either the plan or the zoning, I think that’s reasonable. There are timeframes that we’re working under here obviously with regard to approval or of any application and I believe we have basically until the end of January, if I’m not mistaken. There’s 60 days that we have. I think that ends the end of this month and then we have 60 more days that we can take. I’m not sure, and I guess explaining my no vote on the tabling. Is not disagreeing with your position that we need to perhaps review this, but it’s just with the timeframe with regard to this application. I don’t know if the 2 months is sufficient time to accomplish that. So I do see some inconsistencies here with this application, with the community commercial guidance and the comprehensive plan. Not that it’s not commercial. It is commercial but with regard to the inconsistencies associated with the zoning and how the zoning ordinance and specifically the building size kind of spoke to the intention of that. Of that guiding. They are, I don’t think they meet the intention or the general standards of a PUD, and I think getting comments back to Ms. Nelson with regard to the building size and one of your comments that I caught was that it was sized for the market or the trade area and that it was sized for where you need to be, and I fully respect that and understand that as you operate your business. What I think we have here though is that this site, this property isn’t able to support that. I mean to, that it’s the size of the development I think exceeds the reasonable use of this particular property under this zoning guide so I think that’s, you know for some more feedback, I mean there are a lot of areas where there’s some deficiencies or minimum standards from that but I think what it gets down to is, and this was mentioned at the Planning Commission meeting as well. Is the size of the facility, or the size of the proposed building and the use with regard to this property and the particular aspects of this property where I think it also shows challenges and deficiencies so you know, I guess ultimately for these reasons I do not support the concept application and would certainly support the staff’s recommendation on the, for a motion this evening. Any other thoughts or comments. Councilman Laufenburger. 44 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah, I’m reminded of just one of Ms. Nelson’s opening comments and that is, there’s two things that she really wants to hang on and that is the footprint and parking and frankly the parking is predicated by the requirement for the footprint and it just, it’s not a match. Just doesn’t seem to be a match. So Mayor I’d like to make a motion. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: I move that the Chanhassen City Council direct staff to prepare Findings of Fact consistent with denial of the Concept Planned Unit Development. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none we’ll proceed with the vote. Councilman Laufenburger moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the Chanhassen City Council direct staff to prepare Findings of Fact consistent with denial of the Concept Planned Unit Development for Planning Case 2011-11, Walmart. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Mayor Furlong: Given the, though we don’t have much to go on our agenda this evening, let’s just take a short recess subject to the call of the Chair. The City Council took a short recess at this point in the meeting. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: Councilman McDonald: …way down to Chanhassen Station. There’s 9 stop lights or something. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Not that I’m counting. Councilman McDonald: But we have eliminated a vast majority of those stop lights. I think we got it down to 2. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Two, yep. Councilman Laufenburger: Let me tell you, south of 5 we don’t have near that problem with stop lights. Councilman McDonald: Well and we’ve got a station for you south of 5 now. th Mayor Furlong: No I think that’s, so the ribbon cutting for Chanhassen Station is on the 9 but service th starts on Monday the 12, is that correct? Councilman McDonald: Yes that is correct. Mayor Furlong: And if people are interested in finding out about the schedule, I assume that’s on the Southwest Transit website. I assume it’s published. 45 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 Councilman McDonald: It’s published, I thought it was also on the Chanhassen website. Todd Gerhardt: Yes. Councilman McDonald: Isn’t there a link? Todd Gerhardt: And we’ll send a reminder notice for the time and everything for council just so you’re aware. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman McDonald: And there will be cake and it’s going to be inside at the Dinner Theater. There’ll be a, you know quite a few things going on. The public is invited so. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Free bus rides around town? Councilman McDonald: Not sure… We’ll have to work on that. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other council presentations? One comment that I’ll make. I’ve been asked to serve, and it will be interesting but I’ve been asked to serve on a legislative working group relating to looking at changes in the LGA, local government aid formulas and calculations. We don’t get any. Kate Aanenson: You’re non-biased. Mayor Furlong: While I you know, I don’t know. Councilman Laufenburger: The task will be daunting. Mayor Furlong: Well yes, yes. I guess maybe I should have been careful here before I brought this up publicly. Now maybe there’s an expectation that we do start getting some but I don’t think that’s the goal or the intention of this group but really it’s to, and I’m looking forward to learning more about it but it’s really to take a look at the system that’s been in place for decades and whether, at least as I’m looking at it, what was it intended to accomplish? Is it accomplishing those goals? Are there better ways to do things and realizing of course that there’s, the legislature probably has nothing else to do in the coming months. No Vikings stadium to consider or bonding bill or budget shortfalls so that this will probably be number one on their agenda but in any event I just wanted to share that with the rest of the council and others that I’m pleased to be able to serve in that capacity. Other comments or council presentations? If not, Mr. Gerhardt, administrative presentations. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: Todd Gerhardt: Just, I think I talked about it at our last meeting but we had quite the celebration for Dale Gregory, for his 40 years of service with the city and thank you to the mayor for attending and saying his appreciations for that service. It was fun to hear the stories of where our public works originally started from. Dale was our first Park and Rec Superintendent and we started with some pretty modest times so again I just want to extend my appreciation for Dale’s outstanding 40 years of service with the City. That’s all I have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? Then I guess just final comments th upcoming. We will be meeting in a special meeting next Monday night, the 5 which formerly was our Truth in Taxation hearing but it will be basically the public hearing relating to the budget. And then our 46 Chanhassen City Council – November 28, 2011 th final meeting for this calendar year will be on the 12 as well, which is our regularly scheduled meeting. There will be no meeting the second, or excuse me, the fourth Monday of December as is our normal practice. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 9:50 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 47