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CC Minutes 05-29-2012Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 Assistant Chief Coppersmith: Absolutely sir. Recreational fire is defined as a fire that is attended, number one. It should be either in a manufactured fire ring or in a fire pit and the fire should be no larger than 3 feet by 3 feet and I will say 3 feet high because I have seen people that have stacked wood well over 6 feet, big teepee style and light it because it’s within a 3 foot ring and it should be no closer than 25 feet from any structure or combustibles. Councilman Laufenburger: Like a tree. Assistant Chief Coppersmith: Like a tree or a deck and the key is you should have, should be attended and you should, as long as you’re having a fire there’s no big deal. You know hook up a garden hose to the spigot out back and have it stand by you just in case. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Thanks for that reminder. Assistant Chief Coppersmith: Thank you sir. Mayor Furlong: Good question. Anything else? Very good. Thank you for the update. Appreciate it. RESIDENTIAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD-R) AMENDMENTS: REQUEST TO AMEND THE FOLLOWING RESIDENTIAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENTS: CHANHASSEN VISTA, CHAPARRAL, FOX HOLLOW, LAREDO LANE, NEAR MOUNTAIN, RD OAK PONDS, PHEASANT HILL, AND SARATOGA 3 ADDITION, CITY OF CHANHASSEN. Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. At your last meeting you approved the first series of the PUD’s. I just want to again briefly describe kind of the process. We do have a number of them tonight so we’d like to go through each of them separately but have you make one motion because each of them has unique characteristics. So again the City’s requesting to amend the PUD’s. Make sure they incorporate the unique attributes of each PUD as they were established. The City references an underlying zoning district so that was determined what the appropriate district would be. The City has prepared these ordinances so those are a part of your attachments that you are approving tonight and again in researching these PUD’s we discovered that some houses may not meet the standards of the development and if any structures that are non-conforming, they’re grandfathered in. If someone was to, we’re not forcing somebody to come into compliance today but if they were wanting to do something additional then we would work with them at that time but I just want to make sure that that’s th clear. The Planning Commission did hold a public hearing on May 15. There was one person in attendance and I will go through that when we get to it. It’s actually the last PUD but the Planning th Commission did recommend at their meeting on May 15 7 to 0 to recommend to you the approval of those. Again I just wanted to reiterated with each of the neighborhood groups, we’ve had neighborhood meetings and those have been very positive so we had approximately 50 people attend with this group and actually met with somebody again today who attended the meeting so it felt very positive about the information that was provided and our website too has a lot of information. So with that I’ll go through each of the PUD’s before you tonight. We tried to break these into groupings. This is kind of we’re doing it by geographical area so this is kind of it’s a quadrant in here so these are the ones we’ll be going through. Pheasant Hills, Chaparral, Chan Vista, Fox Hollow, Saratoga, Oak Ponds, Fox Hollow and Near Mountain. So the first one is the Chan Vista PUD and there’s actually four additions to that and the subdivision was created or this PUD was created back in 1986. It covers approximately 70 acres. There’s 123 housing units in this development. The smallest lot in that PUD was 11,700 so that then became the minimum. We also looked at each of the houses on the lot to find the narrowest lot which would be 80 feet and then to establish from that the setback. The 30 foot and the 10 on the sides so with that we did recommend the zoning ordinance which would be the underlying zoning district would be the residential RSF but for those unique characteristics which I just described which would be the minimum lot so really 6 Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 nobody has the opportunity to further subdivide. Those are captured in where they are today and again with the neighborhood meetings we did find that there’s some, you know some things that might be very close to the property line and they are what they are so it’s not our intent at this time to make any of those changes but to create those standards going forward. Mayor Furlong: Ms. Aanenson a question for you. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: When you say there are some things close to the property line. Kate Aanenson: Maybe a deck. Maybe an accessory structure that wouldn’t meet the current setbacks. Again when these were put in place back in 1986, maybe a yard barn wasn’t checked for a setback or someone put a deck on in the weekend and maybe didn’t get a permit and those are all legal non- conforming at this point but if someone was to come in and try to screen it in we might check at that point. Mayor Furlong: Okay, and I guess that’s my question. They’re legal non-conforming so they’re effectively grandfathered in with any changes here. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: These changes won’t necessarily require a change in the structure just by making this, the changes to the ordinance. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: But if somebody’s looking to expand a deck or change it or relocate or something then these standards that we’re looking at tonight would come into play. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. So the minimum lot width as opposed to what would be a 90 foot for RSF, they get the, because they’re all smaller, and the lot depth would be similar to what we already have in the Residential Single Family so with this then you go back to the residential single family zoning district for the setbacks for an accessory structure. Anything else like that would speak to that so these are the unique attributes and then the ordinance would cite, as is attached in here, the underlying zoning district would then be the Residential Single Family and that’s what’s attached here. Your ordinance. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kate Aanenson: Any questions on that one? Okay. And then Chaparral. There’s actually two additions. nd Chaparral 2. Excuse me, three additions and the third and this was done in 1978. And I want you to know in some of these neighborhood meetings we did find original owners and spoke with them so that was very interesting to get history of the city and how they’ve enjoyed living in their home and seeing all the changes so. So the Chaparral again is 106 acres. The entire. There was a park dedication with this. That Meadow Green Park was a dedication with this project so the residential acreage is actually 64 and they also dedicated some right-of-way and some additional for Kerber Boulevard so the total number of units in that is 423. And this is a little unique because there’s actually three different types of products in there. You have some single family. You have some duplexes and you have some fourplexes in there so with that we had to come up with different standards for each of those developments so it’s a little easier maybe to see on here where you can see the attached product. The fourplexes and the like so we had to come up with different standards for each of these. So the minimum lot size for each type of product is 7 Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 identified in there. Again for the single it’s 10,000 and then this would be the lot size. The duplex would be 4,300 and the quad would be 3,400 and that’s for their lot. Now again, maybe I say this too many times but the least flexible product you have is an attached product. Most of the times those aren’t changed. We did a number of years ago give a blanket variance for people to screen in their porches on these but we did that as a PUD amendment and that would be a way to accomplish that but the single family home is more where you have the most changes because some people’s lifestyle change. They may not want to move. They may want to add on. They may want to put a yard but most people living in a fourplex or a twin home there’s not as much change. People may move out of that type of a unit but we’ve established all the minimum lot widths and lot depths for all of these. Again the underlying zoning district then would be, it’s an R district. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. R-4 and. Laurie Hokkanen: R-8. Kate Aanenson: R-8 so that would be our attached. R-4 you can have a 10,000 square foot lot minimum and then the R-8 is for the attached projects so again those would be the supplemental or the underlying zoning districts. Any questions on that one? Mayor Furlong: Questions? Thank you. Kate Aanenson: Okay, Fox Hollow. Fox Hollow is four additions and this was done in 1984 and this one had a wetland and also has a park adjacent to it. The park wasn’t taken with this one but at a different date but this one does have wetland setbacks and there were specific contour line established with this. Now as we’ve moved through the history of the city we’ve changed how we look at wetland setback and wetland buffer so what we did is we didn’t change what was originally in the development contract. We left what they were built with in place so people that had an existing setback based on a contour line, we left that in place. It would be very difficult to say you know if a house was set at a certain point to say now you can go to within the wetland setback so I think we’ve tried to make that clear. We’ve had some cases where we’ve had people ask to have their property rezoned. It’s not our intent. It’s really just to clarify what the underlying zoning district is on that. So this one it’s all single family. The average lot size in this area was 12,100 but the smallest lot was actually 7,400 so there was some, a few smaller lots in there. At that time the zoning was P1. Because it is close to the lake it does have the 25% hard cover on there but they’re also averaged out, some of those with the park. So the 95 single family lots have the minimum, the smallest lot is 7,400 with a minimum lot of 67 feet and a minimum lot depth of 100. Again it’d be very difficult for anybody in these subdivisions to subdivide but some people have the flexibility to add on, which is what people do over time which we like when people reinvest in their homes. So the front setbacks, again because of the lot sizes are 20 feet and that’s pretty standard and 10 and 5 which I know we, that’s how we do it now but there were a lot of subdivisions built back then that also had the 10 and the 5 and I think you may not notice it as much in that neighborhood when you have maturation of the homes and the landscaping over time, you know it becomes less obvious so they do have a setback of 75 feet which is kind of our old standard, or there’s a perpetual easement there below that elevation which is along that wetland there, and that was also to exclude people from putting structures out there like docks. So what helps us on these if someone calls in and says can I put a dock out there, we’ve got that codified into the code what you can and cannot do. That’s some of the simplicity. And we did have a few people from that neighborhood show up to the open house too. Mayor Furlong: And what was their, if I can ask a question, what was their comments and concerns? Kate Aanenson: I think some people were concerned if they were non-conforming what would be their circumstances and I think that we resolved that issue and clarified our position on that. This is just what was prohibited in the easement. We carried that forward. That was the original contract with the development. It’s alteration of vegetation which I think is pretty standard how we do it now. So with that 8 Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 I’ll move onto the Laredo. The Laredo actually had 21 single family lots and it’s just a little small subdivision. We learned in this part of town there was, they came in with a large preliminary plat and it was broken down into, depending on what was left on that piece, how they subdivided it up so the average lot size was 11,200 but you can see in this area right in here that these lots are 6,000 square feet. Those are some of the smallest single family lots we found in the city in that timeframe. So again the 21 lots. We did reference the underlying residential single family district and the minimum lot size, we went with the 6,000 because that’s the smallest one there. Again the way the houses are placed on the lot they really are unable to further subdivide so they had the 50 at the building setback line and the minimum depth of 90. Again because of the lot size, the front setback was shorter. 30 is standard and they also had the 5 and the 10. The 15 and then they got the 30% hard coverage because of the small lots. Yes. Mayor Furlong: Question on the lot size. Since the average is 11,200 with a minimum being stated here now at 6,000. I’m assuming that there are some lots that are greater than 12,000 in this development. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: Okay, and so you said because of the placement of the house but if somebody wanted to raze the house, would they be able to subdivide with two lots 6,000 or more? Kate Aanenson: I don’t think so because they’d still have to meet the 50 and the 90 so there isn’t, you have to meet the 50 and the 90. Not one or the other. Mayor Furlong: Okay. I guess let me rephrase. Have you looked through with any of these requirements specifically looked at these properties. Kate Aanenson: Yes we did. Mayor Furlong: And determined whether or not anybody would be able to subdivide based upon the criteria. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Now if somebody was to assemble, buy 3 lots and maybe try to get 2 additional ones out that potentially could happen but it would be difficult again to meet the 50 and the 90 because. Mayor Furlong: It would require some assemblage of existing. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct. Mayor Furlong: Does that concern you at all from a planning perspective? Kate Aanenson: No, I think if you look at, if you go back at how these were laid out, if you look at off of Laredo Lane, those houses in there and even on these, it would be very difficult to, because they’re at the minimum 50 so you couldn’t get a, or maybe some of those are at 60 so you would take quite a few lots to get to the minimums. Todd Gerhardt: Nobody has 100. Kate Aanenson: No. No. They’re all pretty small and you know if you go up. Mayor Furlong: At 100 you’re saying 100 feet. 9 Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 Kate Aanenson: At the building setback, yeah. Yeah, and even if you go up at the other end of the Laredo Lane up in this area here, you just don’t have that much frontage to make that and typically now if you look at, trying to do at least a 2 car garage you are you know, it would be difficult. And some of the other lots, back to your point mayor, most of those narrow lots are maybe deeper. If you were to go over off of some of the other ones coming forward, they’re still very narrow but they’re deeper to get the acreage. Mayor Furlong: Sure. Kate Aanenson: So I think to the City Manager’s point, when you look at that narrowness it’s difficult to try to assemble that to get additional lot yield. Mayor Furlong: How are corner lots treated with these requirements? Kate Aanenson: They would have the two fronts. That was the one place we did note that there was some, they didn’t meet a standard of the you know the 30/30. They may have been treated with a 20/20 so we wouldn’t allow someone to continue to add on on that side and that’s where, in our meeting with the neighbors, if you’re not conforming on one side but you still have room under the hard cover and you can meet the requirements on the back side and you meet all the setbacks, then you would be able to proceed based on that and. Mayor Furlong: To expand there. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kate Aanenson: And certainly at any point someone always has a right to apply for a variance and we look at the reasonableness of that and the circumstances. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Would a corner lot be able to subdivide and claim two. Kate Aanenson: I don’t think they have, I just don’t think they have enough to make it work, yeah. There’s not in this circumstance. Both of those are the smaller ones, at least on this Laredo one. Mayor Furlong: I’m looking off Del Rio. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Todd Gerhardt: Del Rio and Laredo. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Yeah. Todd Gerhardt: But by the time you got the 30 foot setback in the front and the side. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, actually I believe this map is slightly off because this is, this should be right through here. This is part of a different subdivision which has a little bit different standards and I apologize for that. Mayor Furlong: Oh okay. So the home. 10 Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 Kate Aanenson: This is the actual subdivision. Mayor Furlong: That’s actual. Kate Aanenson: Yep, so this was done as another subdivision and their standards are a little bit bigger. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Kate Aanenson: They’re a little closer to the traditional. Mayor Furlong: That answers the question, thank you. Kate Aanenson: You’re welcome. Near Mountain. Near Mountain has a lot of phases in it and interesting to note, when we pulled out the original plans, in one of the phases it was actually intended to be condos. Actually the last phase so I’m not going to read through all the different phases but in putting this together, in order to, because there’s different standards in there, we actually created kind of, you can see the smaller lots here on the eastern side and the western side’s where they get the largest but what we had to do in order to make this work is to go to AA, A, B and C and with each of those, if you look at your zoning ordinance there’s different standards. So if you look at, let me just give you the total number of lots that were put in here. So in 1979 they were actually looking at 120 condominiums, 144 single family, 36 quadraminiums. I’m not sure that terminology’s still used, and for a total of 300 units. Okay. So obviously it was changed quite a bit from that so when they came back for a revised plan the lots in A were the larger lots. Kind of almost like an acre lot. Now if you go back in time and look at this we included wetland acreage in lots, which we don’t do anymore. We only count the upland so these lots, while they show larger acreage, some of that is also encumbered with a wetland so the upland area isn’t actually quite that big. So for the AA standard, which is the Near Mountain and the Summit at Near Mountain, which is this area here, those lots are all, there’s 42 and those are at 20,000 so those are the biggest lots and that was actually the last phase where they were looking at doing the condominiums. So those are 150 foot in depth. 115 in width so again those wouldn’t be split and the topography’s a little bit challenging up there too. Then in area A there’s 51 units and the minimum lot size there is 17,200. Again a standard RSF would be the 15,000 so those are slightly larger and those come closer to our standard 90 and this is 100 by 125 which is RSF standard. They also are encumbered by the shoreland and so there’s wetland also in there. So then B right here is the 46 units, and those are a little smaller at 10,900. When I says smaller again I don’t want to, some of that is included in the wetlands. While the other ones may appear larger they may also have a significant amount of wetland, and again 75 by 125. That’s pretty close to a standard RSF. And then C has a couple different areas of lot sizes. 57 at 9,730 and 40 at 7,400 so there’s two different lot sizes within there. And with that we are using the RSF district as the underlying zoning district in that again looking at that, because of the wetlands and the setbacks, it’d be very difficult for somebody to, you’d have to really assemble quite a few to make it work to further subdivide. Again at the time that these were put in place we’ve looked at wetlands a lot different than was done at that time. So with that I’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have on the Near Mountain so here’s the chart that we went through. Mayor Furlong: Any questions on this? Councilman Laufenburger: None here. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. 11 Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 Kate Aanenson: Alright. Then Oak Ponds, this actually had four additions. Oak Ponds as you may be aware is where we have the senior housing project and this one also came in with a couple different types of product so within that, we just codified. Councilman Laufenburger: Kate. Kate Aanenson: Yep. Councilman Laufenburger: You said the senior housing. That’s Centennial, is that right? Kate Aanenson: Centennial, I’m sorry. Thank you. We do have a couple senior housing. Centennial Hills. Our first senior housing project. So with that what we did is just put the standards, codified them and that was really just the minimum lot sizes for each of those product. They all share common open spaces between the Oak Ponds development so that one is actually pretty straight forward as far as the underlying zoning district which is R12 which is our high density zoning district and that’s what that is. That is the units per acre. I’m not sure if I have the total number. It’s 27 acres and 211 units total in that whole PUD. So here’s our senior housing and then we’ve got the townhouses and then the attached. Alright. Any questions on that? Mayor Furlong: No. Kate Aanenson: Okay. And then Pheasant Hills is four additions done in 1983. Consists of 33 lots. Again some of these are encumbered by wetlands in the back so while the average may be slightly skewed because that’s how it was calculated at the time so the 38 single family lots, minimum lot size of 10,000 square feet. Minimum lot width at the front yard is 30 and the setback is 70. Then the minimum depth 105 feet so again we would go with the 30% hard surface coverage and the underlying zoning district would be the RSF. Question on that one? And then finally Saratoga. This is right behind City Hall here and that one has a lengthy history. There’s 18 units built there and the zoning on that allows for 46. At this hearing Mr. Hansen, who owns the property did show up and spoke with the Planning Commission regarding pursuing his plan that had some entitlements so the Planning Commission did a good job explaining to him at this time it is not our intent to give any standing to any plans that maybe have. That would be a separate process to go through. He actually wanted to get a density bonus on that and this isn’t the process. They’d have to submit a plan and then for the staff and the Planning Commission to hold the public hearing on and weigh those merits and then give a recommendation to the City Council so with that we did recommend that he pursue that in a different option so we are recommending the R12 as the underlying zoning district. Again this one had a little bit, you can see how much of that is built. The City did purchase some of that for some additional ballfields but this is the property here off of Santa Vera. Mayor Furlong: So there is more development out there? Kate Aanenson: There is more development opportunities, yes. He explained to the Planning Commission he’d like to maintain what he thought he had approval on. He never presented anything but he has been busy and wasn’t able to pursue those plans and so he would really need to start over with pursuing a development proposal. I think he understood that and then the Planning Commission did a good job explaining that. So with that you know you could have a total of 46 and I explained there’s already 16 on there so this is what with the underlying zoning district put in place. Again it’s not an R at this time too. This is what the development contract said. No townhouses. No detached townhomes. No detached townhomes and no detached single family homes. They wanted apartments so that’s how we left it. If they wanted to change for that he could come forward, or any owner of the property could come through and request a change at that time and amend the PUD but we didn’t want to start doing that with 12 Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 each of these because then we’d be negotiating all of them and our goal at this time is really just to codify them. Mayor Furlong: As they exist today. Kate Aanenson: Yes because you’ll see there’s some that are getting more complex that if people want changes then it would become a slippery slope to kind of go through that process. Our goal is to put everything into the development contract that was approved with the council minutes to the best of our understanding is to codify what was the intent at that time. Certainly you could revisit those issues under an application but I think it’s important to have an application in front of you to decide whether or not that would be the appropriate use. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any questions on that? No? Todd Gerhardt: Park and Rec Director promised him 16 more units if he sold him a baseball field. Kate Aanenson: Well I think too if you were to say you could have the townhomes but there was an expectation that you could still get 40, they might not fit on there so I think you have to look at that on a project or a case application as opposed to just you know going ahead and waiving your authority on that. So with that we gave the setbacks. Again this would be standard with the PUD. The hard cover, surface coverage gives them a lot of leeway on that but I think when you look at the product type, you know when you need to provide so much parking it does require to go more vertical so if there’s a expectation of so many units, you’d have to weigh that on how many they could get on the site. There’s also specifics regarding architecture which we also included. Again they’re willing to look at that at the time an application was submitted but for now we’re just codifying it. So with that we recommend that the City Council approve the following attached ordinance and adopt the Findings of Fact and I’d be happy to answer any of the questions that you have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Aanenson. Very comprehensive analysis and recommendation and thank you for that and your staff, please extend our thanks to them and to the Planning Commission and certainly for all the residents that have been involved, appreciate your outreach there as well to, not only do you get the chance to meet some people that have been here a long time, which is kind of fun, but you get to answer their questions and make sure that they understand what the process is too so we appreciate that. If there are no other questions there is a motion that has been recommended. Would somebody like to make a motion? Councilman Laufenburger: I’ll do so Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: I move that the Chanhassen City Council approves the attached ordinances rezoning the following Planned Unit Developments: Chanhassen Vista, Chaparral, Fox Hollow, Laredo rd Lane, Near Mountain, Oak Ponds, Pheasant Hill, Saratoga 3 Addition and adopt the Planning Commission Findings of Fact. Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion on that motion? Councilman Laufenburger moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the Chanhassen City Council approves the attached ordinances rezoning the following Planned Unit Developments: 13 Chanhassen City Council – May 29, 2012 Chanhassen Vista, Chaparral, Fox Hollow, Laredo Lane, Near Mountain, Oak Ponds, Pheasant rd Hill, Saratoga 3 Addition and adopt the Planning Commission Findings of Fact. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Mayor Furlong: Thank you and thank you again. I think there are some more of these coming forward as well. Kate Aanenson: You’ll be seeing a few. We’ll be sprinkling them in. Mayor Furlong: Alright, that sounds good. Thank you. Appreciate your good work. APPOINTMENT TO THE PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION. Mayor Furlong: Earlier this year we made appointments to all four of our commissions that serve the City Council. The Park and Rec, the Planning Commission, Senior Commission and Environmental Commission. Because of the number of applicants and for other reasons there was one opening that remained on the Park and Rec Commission. Earlier this evening the City Council interviewed two applicants. Two candidates for the opening on the Park and Rec Commission. Jeff. Councilman Laufenburger: Boettcher. Mayor Furlong: Boettcher, thank you. Councilman Laufenburger: Jim, excuse me. Mayor Furlong: It’s Jim. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah Jim. Mayor Furlong: And Todd Neils. Both candidates were certainly qualified and bring different skills and abilities and were both showed definite passion towards improving our park and recreation programs and system here in the city and we appreciate that. It’s the council this evening I believe, and I would certainly place in nomination Jim Boettcher’s name for the appointment to the Park and Rec Commission and ask for a second. Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll second that. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. As I said, as with always the case if we had 2 positions we’d be appointing both this evening I believe. Both were very qualified candidates. As it is there’s one position so we have to make a choice but we certainly appreciate all the work that Todd has done with the City and the CAA over the years and know that he’ll continue to be involved and will continue to work with our staff and the Park and Rec Commission for issues as he discussed. With that is there any other discussion or comments? If not, as there’s been a motion to appoint Jim Boettcher to the Park and Rec Commission. It’s been seconded. We’ll proceed with the vote. Mayor Furlong moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to appoint Jim Boettcher to a 3 year term beginning April 1, 2012 to the Park and Recreation Commission. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. 14