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PC 2012 01 03 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 3, 2012 Chairman Aller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, Mark Undestad, Tom Doll, Kathleen Thomas, Kevin Ellsworth, Kim Tennyson and Lisa Hokkanen STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; and Angie Kairies, Planner PUBLIC PRESENT: Gayle and Lois Degler 9111 Audubon Road PUBLIC HEARING: DEGLER VARIANCE: REQUEST FOR A VARIANCE TO ALLOW AN ACCESSORY STRUCTURE (AGRICULTURAL BUILDING) IN EXCESS OF 1,000 SQUARE FEET ON PROPERTY ZONED AGRICULTURAL ESTATE DISTRICT (A2) LOCATED AT 9111 AUDUBON ROAD. APPLICANT: GAYLE DEGLER, PLANNING CASE 2012-01. Kairies: Thank you Chairman Aller, members of Planning Commission. Once again the application before you tonight is a variance request from the 1,000 square foot accessory structure limitation at 9111 Audubon Road. The property is zoned Agricultural Estate and this is Planning Case 2012-01. The property is located, excuse me west of the property is the city of Chaska. Audubon Road, which includes single family homes as well as just south of the property. East is the Preserve single family subdivision which is comprised of single family dwellings. North of the property is Chanhassen High School, Chaska electrical substation, Lyman Boulevard and Sunridge Addition which is also comprised of single family dwelling units. South of the property is Liberty at Bluff Creek which is multi-family dwellings and then southeast is also the Bluff Creek Overlay District which will be outlined for you in a later slide. Again the request is for a 13,191 square foot variance from the 1,000 square foot accessory structure limitation for the construction of a 2,592 square foot storage structure. This is an addition to multiple accessory structures currently located on this site, and I’ll go into more detail on each of those further in the presentation. Just a little background on the accessory structure limitation. This was adopted in 2007 and the purpose was to limit home occupations from being run out of these accessory structures that were typically larger in agricultural districts or rural residential districts. Occupations such as landscapers or contractors yards, things of that nature. During that discussion it was, part of the discussion was that agricultural uses would be, it would be reasonable to grant a variance for agricultural buildings because of the storage of the farm equipment and that city code states that it must be within an enclosed structure. As far as the site is concerned, it’s 64 acres. Again it’s zoned agricultural estate which does permit agricultural uses such as the current farming operation on the site. There are multiple accessory structures in addition to the one being requested. Because it’s agricultural and it’s over 10 acres building code does not come into effect with this building. Therefore they are just required to get a zoning permit through the City. The southerly portion, which is outlined in red, is the Bluff Creek Overlay District. Typically a conditional use permit is required. However the city code does have an exemption for properties that are not being subdivided that currently have a principle structure that was constructed prior to 1998 and the principle structure on this site was constructed in 1959. Therefore the CUP is not required. Here is a breakdown of all of the accessory structures that are located on the site. There’s a chicken house, grainery, other farm out buildings that are necessary for the operation. Where you see the blue rectangle, that’s where the proposed shed will be located. There were two structures that have previously been removed to make way for this structure so there’s a removal of 1,316 square feet and there’s an addition Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 3, 2012 of over 2,000 square feet for the new structure, but it will be in the same location. Previously as stated on page 4 of your staff report, staff also noted that there is an accessory structure located on the property just to the west which is city property and there was a condition to have that vacated. Staff has removed, is requesting that that condition be removed because it’s not on the subject site so that can be part of your motion to make sure that that condition’s removed. Just to give you a little more breakdown as far as the 13,000. The total of all of the existing buildings, less the two removed and then the new shed is 14,191 square feet and then we take away the 1,000 that’s permitted so that’s where we come up with the 13,191 square feet variance request. Again the practical difficulty is because it’s an agricultural property. This out building is in harmony with the property and the use and city code also states that all storage must be located within an enclosed structure. Staff is recommending approval of the variance request based on the conditions as outlined in the staff report and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Decision and I’d be happy to take any questions at this time. Aller: Thank you. This, the property’s going to be on the same footprint as the ones that were removed so the new structure would be, although bigger but it would cover the same footprint? Kairies: Correct. Aller: So that would minimize the impact on the overall property itself location wise? Kairies: Correct. It will be in the same location as the two that have been removed. Aller: That’s the only question I have. Anything? Ellsworth: Mr. Chair, yes. Angie on one of the conditions, number 4, not necessarily in regards to this particular case but in general how do we know later on that those structures aren’t used for home occupations? Who polices that or how do we go about finding that out or making sure that doesn’t happen in the future? Kairies: Typically a building permit is required. If a building permit, if there is some improvements without a building permit, sometimes you find out through complaints, things like that. The community kind of keeps an eye on things as well so we do find out that way. Aanenson: Can I just add one other thing? The other thing we try to do on these is we typically, actually Angie puts these on the permits is that these are not to be used for home occupations. We try to notify people up front and advise them when they come in for a permit. As was indicated, if it’s for agricultural purposes, it may not need a permit but even so we try to advise people that even if we don’t know about it, somebody else in the neighborhood might know and then we’d have to go back so if they’re making a decision that I’m going to try to do this for home occupation, it may come back and that’s why we changed the ordinance because as we’re becoming more urbanized some of these are very attractive to people to run. Contractor’s yard I would think is probably our biggest one. People that do snowplowing, those sort of things and they become a nuisance so that’s why we put this in place. Not for this particular case but this one kind of got caught up in it but it is kind of, as Angie said, it’s a complaint driven but we also try to notify in the permit. It’s an anomaly when someone says I need a 1,000 square foot structure and you say where is it? How are you using it? That’s on that sheet she checks all the time so it’s the best we can do. Ellsworth: Okay, thank you. Aller: Anything else? 2 Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 3, 2012 Thomas: Well actually I do have a question. Angie what happened, it’s not that the structure is not on, the condition we removing. Number 6. Kairies: Yes. Thomas: Is it not on the property, on the city property or what happened with that that we’re taking it off? Kairies: Because it’s not part of this application, it’s not on this subject parcel. Thomas: Okay. Kairies: We can’t make it a condition of approval. Thomas: Okay. But it’s still technically is on city property or? Kairies: Right, and that’ll be addressed in the future. Thomas: Okay. Okay. Aller: Anything further? With that if the applicant wants to come forward or make a statement, that’s fine. Come forward and state your name and. Gayle Degler: Members of the commission, I’m Gayle Degler and this is my mother Lois Degler. The application was made, my name is on it basically I’m doing most of the work for my mother. The confusion came, arose because it just happens my mother’s name is Lois Degler and my wife’s name is also Lois Degler so when the application, we had two different parcels that were confused because of the same name. Besides that I think the city staff did an excellent job and if there’s any other questions I’d be happy to explain. Thomas: Got it. Aller: I have nothing. Anyone? Gayle Degler: Thank you. Aller: Thank you Mr. Degler. Comments. Anyone wish to make a motion? Undestad: I’ll make a motion that the Chanhassen Planning Commission, as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments, approves Planning Commission Case 2012-01 for a 13,191 square foot multiple accessory structure area variance on property zoned Agricultural Estate District as shown in Exhibit A, subject to conditions in the staff report, eliminating condition number 6 and adoption on the Findings of Fact and Decision. Aller: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Hokkanen: Second. Aller: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? 3 Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 3, 2012 Undestad moved, Hokkanen seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission, as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments, approves Planning Case #2012-01 for a 13,191 square foot multiple accessory structure area variance on property zoned Agricultural Estate District as shown in Exhibit A, subject to the following conditions and adoption on the Findings of Fact and Decision: 1. The applicant shall call Gopher One State Call (651) 454-0002 to complete a locate request prior to construction. 2. The shed must meet all setback requirements. 3. A Zoning Permit is required. 4. The accessory structure may not be used for a home occupation as outlined in the Chanhassen City Code and may only be used for agricultural purposes as defined by Minnesota State Statute. 5. The accessory structure may not be used as a separate dwelling unit. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Thomas noted the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated November 1, 2011 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS: None. CITY COUNCIL UPDATE. th Aanenson: Thank you. On Monday, on November 14 the Nowling variance appeal was, went to the th City Council and that was approved. On November 28 the Walmart meeting, City Council meeting Walmart was a conceptual was approved, was denied. Excuse me. Was denied and so the staff did prepare Findings of Fact which were approved on their next meeting. Pioneer Pass Addition was approved, the second phase and that is actually kind of in this area we were just talking about. And then th Findings of Fact for the Walmart again was approved by the City Council on December 12. Aller: Great, thank you. DISCUSS CODE AMENDMENTS: RESIDENTIAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENTS. Thomas: Are we going to adjourn? Aanenson: We’re going to keep this on. We’re not going to adjourn. Aller: This is discussion prior to adjournment. Thomas: Got it. Aanenson: We decided it would be, it might be, if there’s someone watching out there, it might be good information for them. We’re going to be holding some neighborhood meetings which Angie will explain here. Kairies: Yes, so we have brought this to you previously in September and then also last June because what we’re trying to do at a staff level is find the standards for these planned unit developments that were 4 Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 3, 2012 done at the beginning of time and so we’re going through and we found that some have been approved with the final development. Some of the standards have been approved with the site plan. Some with the subdivision. Some we can’t find at all so we’re trying to go through each, not every single lot in the subdivision but to try and get an overall idea of what the standards were. So in doing that we’re trying to figure out the best way to handle these planned unit developments and with many of them what we’ll do is use our standard or PUD ordinance form that we have today and adopt that with standards so that it will be uniform. Everybody will have the information. We’ll be able to communicate that with the residents when they call with they want to do improvements and know what their setback is or their hard surface coverage. Some of them we already have those ordinances in place but we did not put in an underlying zoning district so if that planned unit development is silent on an issue, such as parking or signs, something like that, we need to make sure that that standard is there from the code so we’ll say unless otherwise stated in this ordinance the RSF zoning district applies for everything else. And so that could be just an easy amendment for some of the more recent ones. Another thing that we’re looking at doing is to see if we can fit some of these PUD’s into our standard zoning districts so we have the RLM district which is the low medium density. If the lot areas work out, if the setbacks work out, things like that we can maybe rezone those. So some of them will have more extensive changes or could possibly have more extensive changes than the others so what we would like to do is at a staff level have neighborhood meetings with those property owners. If they’re going to be rezoned they’re going to want to know what that means to them. How that will affect them. If it’s simply just a change to say reference this underlying zoning district we will not have meetings so that’s the gist of what we’re going to do and then we’re going to plan public hearings for those subdivisions as we get through those meetings. Aanenson: I was just going to clarify or maybe iterate what Angie was just saying. So if it’s a straight PUD our goal then would be to notify the HOA President or the Board to let them know. If there’s more changes are required, some of these older ones there are just anomalies in there that there’s no impervious surface requirement or some of them actually allowed some commercial zoning districts in some of the middle of residential so it’s our way to try to communicate with all those homeowners. For example even in let’s say like Longacres it’s just silent on the adoption of the PUD so we’d probably just send it to the association. I don’t think there’s a need for much communication to resolve any issues but we want to make sure that people understand we’re not trying to restrict their property. Make it more onerous but make it clear if they’re selling because people are doing title checks on these and it’s just a black hole that we’re finding on some of these. It’s similar to what we did on the industrial but then you had one owner. Now we’ve got a lot of owners so Angie’s going to kind of show you what the, where they are and kind of how they break down but our goal is to meet with them before they come here for the public hearing so we’ve kind of done a lot of that, just explaining it so we’re not having that dialogue in that meeting and some of them may take a few meetings to get through and explain it all so we’re, this has been Angie’s big project this last year to try and figure out a way to break it into sizeable pieces for us to manage and for you to manage as we go through these so. Aller: Great. Kairies: So here’s a breakdown of what we have so far. There are three that have been struck out and that’s because they’re already done. You might remember the Ches Mar Farm when was that, last year. And so we kind of took care of that one at that time and so we’re going to do similar with the rest of these. So just to give you kind of an idea of where we’re located, this isn’t all of them. Like the Lake Susan Hills, because that one’s done I didn’t indicate it but these are, they’re just throughout the city and we just want to make sure that we’re able to communicate with the property owners when they have questions. Aanenson: And again the PUD’s we’ve done in the recent past are all correct so these are going back to probably the early 90’s. 5 Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 3, 2012 Kairies: Oh, early 70’s. Aanenson: Yeah I mean I’m sorry, as more recent as probably 90 past we’ve been doing correctly. Kairies: Right, right. Aanenson: So these would go way back from the early 70’s and again just people that are trying to sell their property want to know, or even people that want to add on. What are my setbacks and it’s just like Angie said, sometimes they’re in a development contract and some of those things expire. Some of them have longer terms so that’s what we want to make sure there’s no ambiguity on those. Ellsworth: Angie, could you go back to the list? Kairies: Sure. Ellsworth: Isn’t like Liberty on Bluff Creek, isn’t that fairly new? Aanenson: That one is. Kairies: Yes, so that one could probably be struck out. Aanenson: We haven’t finished redoing that one. That one’s on Kate’s. Kairies: And that’s just going through to make sure that it has that line in there that says. Aanenson: So we put them all on the list. Kairies: …district. Aller: I think it’s a great project and I think you should be applauded for doing it in the first place. Thomas: It’s a lot of work. Aller: It’s a lot of work but secondly and more importantly the fact that you’re going out to the community and receiving the input so that they understand it fully. Are aware of what we’re trying to do and it’s, that probably is nothing more frustrating than having to try to find out that they can’t use their property in a certain way without taking action or without coming before us because it hasn’t been addressed and these are exactly those properties that are going to be turning over or that need work done because of the older properties so I think it’s a great project. Aanenson: I think too it’s an opportunity for us, the planning staff to go out and meet with the neighbors and see what other issues they may have so it’s a good opportunity. Like you say it’s some of the older neighborhoods and see what they may have some other issues that we can communicate back to you and to the City Council also. Aller: Great. And so we’ll be setting an agenda for those in groups? Aanenson: Yep. 6 Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 3, 2012 Kairies: Yes. We’ve gotten, so far we’ve gotten a list and most of them researched but we still have quite a few holes so. Aller: So individuals can look to the website if they want to see when these are on the agenda? Kairies: Yes. Aanenson: We’re probably also, that’s why we wanted to put it out here public, we’re thinking of ways that we communicate this too that we can put those out on our website and we’re looking at ways that people can do their own research of why am I going through this and why is my neighborhood selected and try to do a good communication, kind of marketing on that too. Aller: Anything further from anyone? Do we have a motion to adjourn? Thomas moved, Hokkanen seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 7:20 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 7