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PC 2003 09 16CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 Chairman Sacchet called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Uli Sacchet, Kurt Papke, Bethany Tjornhom, Rich Slagle and Bruce Feik MEMBERS ABSENT: Steve Lillehaug and Craig Claybaugh STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Sharmeen A1-Jaff, Senior Planner; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Matt Saam, Assistant City Engineer; Mak Sweidan, Engineer; and Justin Miller, Assistant to the City Manager PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Janet & Jerry Paulsen Debbie Lloyd Melissa Gilman 7305 Laredo Drive 7302 Laredo Drive Chanhassen Villager PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR REZONING FROM BG, BUSINESS GENERAL TO CBD, CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT; REPLAT OF LOTS; CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR MORE THAN ONE BUILDING ON A LOT; SITE PLAN REVIEW WITH VARIANCES OF APPROXIMATELY 60,000 SQ. FT. INCLUDING CINEMA EXPANSION, RETAIL AND OFFICES, AND VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS, MARKET STREET STATION, LLP. Public Present: Name Address John D. Rice Bob Worthington Dan Engelsma Clayton Johnson Milo Thompson Gary F. Milne Rojek Mike Korsh Adam Arvidson Glenn Baird John Uban 551 West 78th Street Southwest Metro Transit 4210 West Old Shakopee Road Bloomberg Companies, Inc. Bentz/Thompson/Rietow Bentz/Thompson/Rietow 4210 West Old Shakopee Road DSU, Inc. 510 Pauly Drive DSU, Inc. Kate Aanenson presented the staff report on this item. Slagle: I just have a quick question Kate. Can you tell me on page 12, if that's the best photo if you will, or rendition. Where are the front doors? Aanenson: They're actually around the comer. Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Slagle: So they're on the east elevation? Aanenson: Correct. Slagle: So that would be then page 13 in the black and white. John Uban: On page 10. Slagle: 107 Okay. John Uban: On the cinema? Page 10 would show the entry. Aanenson: So it'd be on this side. So this is the new addition so it's moving south, so this is the new entrance. The current entrance would be this shaded. Can you focus that just a pinch? Slagle: So we'll have 3 sets of double doors in essence? Aanenson: Two. Sorry, here and here. Slagle: I'm sorry, do that again Kate. Aanenson: Here and here. Slagle: Not to the south, okay. Okay. Papke: So you enter through one of those side double doors. You walk up to the landing to the either, to the, it's hard to point out here. I'm just trying to make sure I understand how the stairs work here. So you either make, if you come in from the southeast you make kind of a right turn. You walk up the landing and then you make a hard, go up halfway and then you make... Aanenson: ...addition part right here and the shaded is existing. Tjornhom: Kate I have a question about the, row 17 seems to be where the handicap parking is. I'm on page 1 of the site plan. To me it seems like it's far away from the cinema doors. Why was it placed there instead of maybe row 18. Aanenson: That's something we can work with the applicant on. Tjornhom: Even 23. It just seems. Aanenson: It's for all those uses that are coming to the back of that building, but that's something, there's a requirement for that and we certainly can work with them on placement, even on, I'm not sure they're evening showing in front of the bank. But there are standards on that. But we can check on that. Kate Aanenson continued with the staff presentation. Papke: I have a question about the turnaround in the southwest corner. What is the plan for that? Does that stay? Does that get converted to parking? And if it stays, what's it's ultimate use? Aanenson: It will be converted to parking. This turnaround on the site? Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Papke: Right. Aanenson: Yes, that will stay and that will be parking on that. That's how it's being currently used. Papke: So the parking that's going to be created there, that's in the calculations right now? Aanenson: Correct. Papke: It wasn't clear from all the. Aanenson: Yes, it is included in all the parking. Kate Aanenson finished with the staff presentation. Sacchet: Alright, questions from staff. Do you want to start Bruce? Feik: I'll start. Kate first a couple housekeeping issues and a couple quick minor questions. On page 5, the paragraph which talked about the replat. The second to the last sentence, because this is not a subdivision, extraction fees are received. Is there a typo there? Aanenson: Are not received. Feik: Are not received, that's what I thought. Aanenson: Yeah, we only get extraction at a subdivision. Feik: Put a not in there. Another minor one, on page 16, which talks about the exterior walls. Page 16. Exterior walls. The bottom portion of that paragraph talks about pro-finished ornamental louvers. I'm assuming that's pre-finished? Aanenson: Pre-finished. Feik: That's in two places. No, I thought it'd be amateur finished. On some more substantive issues. Regarding the Southwest park and ride bus station, is it anticipated that that will be increased in size at all? Aanenson: No. Currently the lease with the city is 120 stalls. Feik: The shed portion. The shelter. Aanenson: No. No, it'd be the approximate same size it is now. You're talking about the little brick with the glass? Feik: Yep. Standing there every day. Stand outside of it every day actually. I have concerns regarding the bus turning radiuses, particularly when the buses go north from that facility and they make the west turn in front of the dance studio. There is tons of double parking in front of that dance studio. It's loaded, and both sides, they're double parking to drop primarily daughters off and pick up from dance. They're double parked in front of really both sides to the extent that Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 it's difficult sometimes to get a single car vehicle through there at 6:00 at night. How can we accommodate or how can we address that? Aanenson: I think that's a good question. I think that there are going to be some, that we need to work through some of those pedestrian conflicts and I think that might be onerous on the tenant to make sure that we identify where they need to be parking and picking up and providing that in a better manner. More safe manner. That goes back to our original point on the circulation. Feik: The problem up there, and my daughter used to dance there is how I know is the parking on that north portion is dominated in the evenings by people using the recreation facility. And literally you're parking 50, 60, 80, 100 feet away. In the wintertime when they're trying to run across the parking lots in their tights. And so it's a natural that people park at the curb as well as park and block the people who are. Aanenson: And they start right after school, 3:00ish. Feik: They do. So I was real concerned there. Also, on page 19 where we're talking about the vehicular use, landscape area. The requirement proposed, the difference between the 18,000 square feet and the approximately 50 percent of that as proposed. You have any additional concerns? Aanenson: I'm sorry, could you say that again? Feik: In the table where it's required 18,290 square feet of landscaping area and they're only proposing 9100 square feet. Aanenson: Yeah, that goes back to that planter islands that we were suggesting and they had some concerns with those. ! think we can accommodate. One of the things that we're also looking at, and we've asked the applicant to look at it is there is additional right-of-way from the railroad tracks, and maybe working with some of that to help some of the circulation issues. I'm not sure we can get all that landscaping on there. Feik: Okay. Is it anticipated that the landscaping next to the railroad would be enhanced then? Aanenson: We could, yeah. Well I think part of what we want to do is improve the circulation in this area, and try to work. One of the things that they had talked about was vacating part of that. I think there's some opportunity to look at some of that too and increase some of the parking efficiency in that area too. Feik: Okay. I think that's most of my questions for now, thank you. Sacchet: Okay, thanks Bruce. Bethany. Tjornhom: Kate, on page 5 under the rezoning section it talks about the traffic generation. And it just says that there was a study done and it was updated in '99. What does that study say? That the area can handle the anticipated generated growth of traffic? Aanenson: Yes. Because of the offset in hours, again the transit, most of that's morning and evening for that. Those cars are sitting there during that time and then that's freed up. There will be points of conflict as Commissioner Feik has pointed out that we need to look at that and try to maybe work a little bit closer with those tenants and Southwest Metro, looking at how that Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 circulates and we did point that out. We see that there's going to be some points of conflict and we don't want people running between buses and that sort of thing so I think that's something we need to take a little bit closer look at. Sacchet: Thanks Bethany. Kurt. Papke: Just one point, more for the record than anything else. Regardless of our personal feelings about the Regardless of our personal feelings about the need for another bank in downtown Chanhassen, you know the property owners have the full use and rights to develop whatever business they wish there and we have no influence on that decision. Aanenson: Correct. A retail bank would be permitted under either zoning district, whether we change or not, that use could come forward. That's correct. Papke: Okay. Just wanted to make sure that was on the record. Thanks. Sacchet: Thanks Kurt. Rich. Slagle: Kate I have a few. Let me start with the architecture and just wanted to ask your opinion and if I go to page, there we go, page 12. In staff's opinion is there a transition from what I'll call the Cinema building look to the restaurant that, do you feel at all that it's a little abrupt or, and I'm not an architect so, I'll ask the same question. Aanenson: I think that's a very good question and I think what they tried to do, and if you look at, there's certain features that they tried to mimic throughout regarding shingles, this architectural feature, finial, is that what we're calling it? The roof top with the finial and the cupola. There's certain elements that repeat, maybe it's better shown on this reveal. And some of the relief patterns mimic, so while one's on a larger scale, there are kind of those same patterns are repeated on a smaller scale. And I think even if you look at the window break, that was part of what's now playing bills. Trying to get that window look to try to mimic. I think that was what we struggled with the most, and they struggled with the most, the architects and we did have several internal meetings trying to figure out how to do that. Slagle: Okay. Just curious as to your thoughts on that. I think more of a concern for me is again the traffic pattern, both in what I'll call vehicle and pedestrian. If I'm not mistaken, I think at our last meeting, our informal meeting, our work session, there was the dialogue about a pedestrian walkway along the north side of the railroad tracks. Because I see the sidewalk you reference, that would go along the north side of Pauly, but then it stops about where the movie theater entrance is, so I have a concern that if someone had a desire to walk further east, yeah they'd be sort of having to cut across the traffic. And then my thought is, although it sounds like there's some concern on the applicant's part, that I do believe that if you're on that sidewalk, whether it be on the north side of Pauly or south side, the desire to get to any of the buildings, you will again be walking right across parking spaces, inbetween cars and so my request would be, and I'll be anxious to hear why we wouldn't consider island somewhere in that vicinity of the cinema where one could walk across maybe a drive and then sidewalk and so forth. Especially given that the plan right now calls for the buses to come back again. And then that leads to my I guess most important question in my opinion is, did we explore the option of having the buses come through, pick up at the new shelter, and then just head along the road back to the south of the Dinner Theater? I mean you could upgrade that little road. Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Aanenson: Right, that is an option. The other ultimate option is to come up, this will be Phase II, to come up. Slagle: To go through? Aanenson: Yeah, because currently if you were to come up to the current, you have to go back in front of the Timber Lounge to get back out. If you were to go straight north from the proposed location, there's actually a curb cut on West 78~. So there's better egress but that is an option. I'm not sure what the control is as far as getting across that other property. Slagle: But wouldn't the other property be owned by one of the two partners? Aanenson: It may be. Slagle: Okay. I mean because it just seems to me that if you could, and obviously from the point of we'll call it the existing building, which is on the bottom of your screen, I mean that's not going to be the most scenic route but if it's only for a year or whatever until Phase II or 3 happens, you would avoid all the issues of radius, turning, pedestrian safety and I mean to me it just seems like it would be really a nice little compromise. Aanenson: Yeah, and that's something ultimately we talk about long term too that we want to be able to connect those, Great Plains and Market Street. Slagle: Okay, so can I just ask why you're, I mean why it isn't part of the short term? If there is a reason. Maybe there's not. Aanenson: Well again, as part of the control of the separate parcel, I mean if that's something you want to explore, I'd be happy to advance that and work on that as a discussion point between now and when it went to City Council if that could be a possibility. I don't know what the concerns would be. Slagle: Fair to ask the applicant? Aanenson: Sure. Feik: Rich, if ! might though. If one of these future phases which calls for that parking ramp and the additional residential to the east, that road would be in the way so we would still be dealing with a parking radius when the construction was going on with the new phase, potentially. Slagle: True, but I mean we deal with what I'll call construction projects daily. Feik: I know. I'm just. Slagle: Where they just sort of move a road or driveway or street 30 yards, 30 feet, whatever. Aanenson: Yeah, and there's some grade issues there as you come back up onto Great Plains. It drops down off of, as you're coming to the Dinner Theater. That road, that's the gravel road that's in place. You're dropping down to significant grades through there. Slagle: My last thought, ! mean because that brings up a good point Kate. My anticipation just for fellow commissioners is that it would go from west to east. In other words the buses coming Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 from downtown or wherever would by 5, take a right on Market and then pull in so there, you wouldn't be coming east to west down the hill, so I just wanted you thoughts on that. Aanenson: Sure. Again, as Commissioner Feik had indicated too, there is a, and it's in there. Of course I'm not finding it, the long term phasing for this, which we talked about at that earlier meeting. That our goal ultimately is to get a park and ride ramp in this area, and there is requesting for funding in place for that as part of that housing component too. To put in this back area. Slagle: And my two cents would be that we could work that out 4-5 years, 6 years or whatever that may be. Sacchet: That's it Rich? Slagle: That's it. Sacchet: I've got a few questions too Kate. First of all that one storage shed is coming out from the start? Aanenson: That's correct. Sacchet: Now in terms of impervious surface we're within range within the 70 percent, is that what it is? Aanenson: There is no impervious surface in the CBD. Sacchet: In that district there is no restriction. Aanenson: Correct. Sacchet: Okay. That's good to know. Now that table of parking spaces on page 9 and 10. It doesn't seem like the numbers add up to me. It looks like the total needed for Phase I, if I add them all up it would be 446, not 406, for the day and 479 for the night, not 460. So I just want to point that out and maybe you can verify that. Aanenson: Yeah, I'll let John Uban go through that. It's, I had the same concern you did when I first read it but I'll let him walk through it. Sacchet: So there's a way to explain it? Okay, we'll ask the applicant about that. Then the other question I had about parking is it does not consider the Southwest Transit because that's all shared parking or, I mean is that also a question that the applicant should answer? Aanenson: No, what do you mean it doesn't consider it? Sacchet: Well I look at all the items on this list, you have the fitness center, the dance studio, the office, park and ride and so forth. Aanenson: It's on the bottom of page 9, the 120 parking. Sacchet: Okay, that's the Southwest Transit? Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Aanenson: Yeah, and if you add up what I showed in that shaded area, there is 120. Sacchet: Okay. That answers that. The cinema expansion. The text talks about converting the remaining traditional style seating across the areas to stadium seating. That is not shown in the plan. In the plan it's still the old style, right? The floor, not stadium. Aanenson: I think if you go to 11... Sacchet: So I could ask that from the applicant, maybe you can give us some insights when you come up. And also the time phase for the, the timeline for Phase II at this point is probably more an applicant question. Aanenson: Yes. Sacchet: Okay. In terms of EIFS, which is so nicely called stucco finished exterior, there is like in other environments we have the restriction of how much EIFS. There's not a restriction here? Aanenson: Well that was the point I made at the beginning. When this came through in 1996 that was what was put on there. That was an old industrial building and that's how it's being used today, Sacchet: So the building is EIFS now? Aanenson: Pardon me? Sacchet: That building is EIFS, the whole thing? Aanenson: Yes. Yes. Yes. And it was controversial at the time because of the high traffic area. Whether or not that would be durable or not but that's the part that was given. Sacchet: So they're not changing anything in that aspect? Aanenson: Yeah, it will have EIFS but it will look different. Right. But it's the same product, yeah. Sacchet: Okay. You touched on that segment that will be left painted block. They're proposing lines and landscape and stuff like that. Is that sufficient in staff's opinion? Aanenson: Well, it's a tough one because currently the bowling alley share a common wall. And part of what the...when they take that wall down the condition and how that, what that material is in place and how it's being treated so ! guess their approach on that would be, because it's kind of an unknown, how they can treat it. What kind of applications they can put on it, that's what they would like to do is try...screen through landscaping then try to put something that may not work. Sacchet: Okay. On page 16 there is a statement about the exterior walls that in key areas there's cultured stone from basically the first floor, the whole height, the way I read that. Aanenson: Yes. Sacchet: But it says that further design development may result in stone reaching only the bottom part. Do we know what that depends upon or is that an applicant question? Planning Commission Meeting- September 16, 2003 Aanenson: It depends on...and on the restaurant. Sacchet: Then on the color drawings it shows it the whole first floor. Well I think that's an applicant question, we'll ask the applicant about that. On page 18 there's a finding and the finding is blank. About a third down the page, just thought I'd point that out because that's probably not intentional. Now you touched on the islands being less than 10 feet needing irrigation tubes. That we recommend they make them 10 foot so they don't need. Aanenson: They're right at, yeah. So our recommendation is, and we've spoken to them about that, that they be irrigated. Sacchet: They'd be irrigated? Aanenson: Correct, with a drip line. Sacchet: So from reading the staff report I came away with the impression that staff thinks it would be better, like wider rather than put the ir tubes in. Aanenson: Jill's recommendation is it's always better to have them a little bit wider. That's currently how they're functioning. We think the enhancement to make them work better, the other option is to irrigate them and what we're recommending is, and that's what the applicant liked is the option too. Instead of making them wider is to irrigate them. Sacchet: And it's staff's opinion that that's okay or. Aanenson: Yes, that's an option. Yes. Sacchet: So it's not something we could say they should do one way or the other? Aanenson: You could make a recommendation. Sacchet: We could. Recommendation or condition, that's the question. Aanenson: The ordinance says, if they're less than 10 feet they have to be irrigated. So what I'm saying is that currently they're less than. Sacchet: Okay. Now the city, we have an ordinance against up cast lights don't we? Aanenson: Yes. They have to be shielded. It's a philosophical discussion. If this is the entertainment and we want a little bit more lively, a little bit loud. Attract people to what's going on there. It's not just at 6:00, 9:00 it's dead. So but how much is too much and is it, how far is that light casting and spilling out to other things. If we do have residential in the future, and we just don't understand how bright that is. Sacchet: So it's, the way I read this, staff is indicating that it might be a good idea to tone down this lighting a little bit. Aanenson: That's correct. Planning Commission Meeting- September 16, 2003 Sacchet: And the up-lighting would certainly be one thing. Are there other aspects? I mean is there the amount of neon, the runners? Aanenson: Right, and there are those on there right now, the chaser lights out there right now. What they're proposing is on, and again it's hard to see. The awning that's here, the chaser lights underneath. Sacchet: The whole stretch. Aanenson: Yeah. That I think is going to be screened enough by the other building that's in front. Again it kind of gets a little bit lively as you're getting out of your car, kind of that excitement kind of thing. That's not as loud as what's on top at 52 feet. A little bit different, but I don't think you're going to get as much spill off and that's how it's kind of right now and it's actually the cinema band is pretty high that's on the building right now with the chaser lights. Sacchet: So in terms of toning down the lighting a little bit, besides the up lights, what would staff recommend could be targeted to mellow it a bit? Aanenson: That's our recommendation, just that. These lights, there's lighting design standards underneath here, underneath that, is that correct? Underneath the lower, and then there's up lighting on the top. So that's what we're saying, we don't understand at 52 feet, how much is that casting? How far does that go off. Sacchet: Well we can have the applicant speak to that too. Now, I'm unclear, how many monument signs are there really? It seems like quite a collection of them. Aanenson: Well, there would be one, this one for the future restaurant then they have two on this, and we're saying for this retail building, because of the bank means they could have it on the wall similar to what we've done on some of the other that are either on the cupola or something like that. They have that opportunity. So our concern is, they wanted one for the bank and one for some of the retail and office to get cueing but that can be provided, you saw the awnings and some of that. There's a nice opportunity to get some of that. Again, if you're identified as part of Market Street Station, that's kind of your cueing right there. And there will be some directional signs, which are allowed, so if you put directional signs, plus the two monuments, it ends up to be quite a bit of signage and we think that's probably too much. Too much busyness going on with the taller sign too. Sacchet: Now talking about this pylon sign, or how you call it the tall one. How tall is it really because it says 20 feet in the variance text but in other places it talks about 22 or 23. Aanenson: It's 21' 10" on there. Sacchet: 21' 10" It's on the drawing. Aanenson: Correct. What staff is recommending is 20 feet. Sacchet: So we are cutting off almost 2 feet from it. Aanenson: Yes. And that's consistent with what we would allow if it was on the highway. 10 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: And then final question. Center Point Minnegasco sent a letter about their existing gas mains going through that. Is that a resolved issue or? Aanenson: That's something that they'll have to work. There are existing utilities that also have to be relocated and that were pointed out in the engineering staff report. And that's something that indicate the easements will have to be moved and secured and when that part of it, the easement vacations, the new easements go forward to the City Council with that portion of it. Saam: To answer the gas question, it hasn't been resolved. I would assume that they would relocate it in probably the new sewer and water easement. That's pretty typical. Sacchet: Okay, thanks Matt. Yes Rich, another question? Slagle: Just one last one. Kate were there any issues, when you brought up the lighting it triggered a thought, were there any issues or comments made by the hotel as respect to those rooms facing the south with lights and noise? Aanenson: Another issue. No, they are concerned about their visibility. I did speak to one of the owners today. They're concerned about what's going to be seen on their side so we're working with them on that issue. Sacchet: Any other questions? You have a question Bethany? Bethany go ahead. Tjornhom: Yeah I just have one more question, looking at the design of the whole building. Is Southwest Metro, are they going to be building a new building or are they going to be maintaining the existing one? Aanenson: That little shelter? Tjornhom: Yeah. Aanenson: That will, I'm not sure you can move that but a similar looking one will be moved. Tjornhom: So then it will kind of be like what's being proposed here? Aanenson: Yeah, and that's part of why I'm saying with the cueing with the monument sign. We want people to know that it's still there. It's still functioning and to use it. It's an important element and it works with their design. It's a destination to get people into that core. Sacchet: Bruce, you've got another one? Feik: That will be available during construction as well? Aanenson: That's a good question. We need to ensure that that's happening, yes. That may be a condition that we make sure that that's operational. Sacchet: I have one more question Kate. On the loose sheet that was given us with our packet that shows the parking, like which parking is new and so forth. The parking in the area where that dinner theater shed is broken down, is not the padded in any way and it's not existing parking so that made me wonder if that part of the parking included with the first phase? 11 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Aanenson: Yes...that is part of. Sacchet: That is part of what's going to happen. Aanenson: That's part of the 120, correct. Sacchet: Okay. I believe that's all the questions for staff. Thank you very much Kate. If the applicant wants to come forward and present your side of this, we'd like to hear from you. Please state your name and address for the record please. John Uban: Good evening. My name is John Uban. I'm the consulting planner helping both Kraus-Anderson and Bloomberg Companies, and the cinema of course is an applicant as well. This is a joint application. We're here primarily to answer your questions and, because Kate gave a very good overview of everything. So I think what we'll do is maybe, I'll hand this out which is just a quick response to a couple of the recommendations that's in the staff report and go through that, but I heard a number of other concerns that you had so I think we'll address those specifically. Sacchet: Excellent. Want to give us your papers, we'll pass them out here. We'll need one more here. We can share, it' s okay. Thank you. Alright, you want to just touch on those a little bit? John Uban: Pardon? Sacchet: Do you want to just touch on those first a little bit? John Uban: Yes. Sacchet: Please go ahead. John Uban: Now first of all, there's the issue of the width of streets and certainly Pauly Avenue, which is the main street that goes along the railroad tracks, needs to be the widest street here. Getting 26 feet on that I think is quite doable. I think there might just be a couple places where technically it may not meet that. The other issue is the driving aisle within parking bays, which is your normal parking area. 26 feet is really kind of wide compared to the standard. It's usually 24 feet, which we have created, and that's good for perpendicular parking. We have one area through the interior that is sort of our interior pedestrian street, because that's where the sidewalk is on both sides. We don't want to narrow the sidewalk up unnecessarily. We would like to have that be a good pedestrian experience, but that is angled parking and that technically works the standards for that type of parking is a 22 foot wide driving aisle. And that's how it functions, so we will work with staff to resolve those dimensions but we will be asking for something less than 26 feet in parking areas, and it works perfectly fine. Throughout all of Minnesota, 24 feet is the general standard. We would also, it's just an issue of, maybe it's clarification with, on number 19 and the approaches to the site. We're trying not to re-build Pauly Street and the approaches and so forth so just to put in a little extra concrete here and there I think we'll just keep them the way they are, but we'll cooperate with the city engineering standards to make those work well. Emergency overflows. This is for drainage water in the parking lots. We have one area that, where we have between the two buildings, where we don't have much grade fall and we need to have less than a foot of separation. That's another engineering issue. It's a very small drainage area but we think we can work something out there. Sacchet: That's between which buildings? In there, okay. 12 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 John Uban: What happens is, we don't want to then create an odd slope on the sidewalks or within the parking area to just create another couple of inches of depression to move water. So we just think that for a small drainage area that something less, maybe 8/10 of a foot might work just fine. The area around the mark, the front of the theater, which is our number 24. We need that to be open. Part of this design is to create a good viable entertainment district that's sort of buried into this site. It doesn't really have a public street frontage. It has a railroad track which is kind of grown up and shaggy looking. So part of this is the pylon sign that has some fun happening on it, and then the other part is having a fun fagade to this parking, or to the marquee and then we just don't want to put another set of islands in front of that unnecessarily. So that's why we've left that open. We've tried to meet everything everywhere else. Technically you are getting more landscaped area in this plan than you have today out there. So this is a pretty good improvement I believe. What we've tried to do, just to kind of explain the site plan a little bit, is to create a street fagade and that's why the buildings really line up. We've changed the grade. If you go out there today it's kind of rolie polie and then the old bowling alley sits in there and that's all at a different elevation, and the hotel to the north is up even higher, and so we have this sloping terrain and we happen to have a lot of bad soils in there as well but we're trying to create this nice pedestrian fagade and so that has a lot to do with how we grade the site and assemble the buildings. So on this we're trying then to really make it look quite attractive. Let me quick go to the cinema lighting, number 29. We will work with city staff so it will work within their parameters and yet at the same time create something really fun. And number 30, the two monument signs. This is an issue that's quite important to us. We have combined a building, we're trying to create a main street or any street really, and usually you have a variety of buildings, kind of architecture, but they're all connected. So you know they're broken up into blocks. The detail on the office and this multi-purpose building has some of that same dynamic going on. Now we could have separated the bank as a separate building which is very typical suburban development, and had it's own sign, and then had the retail building and then perhaps a little office building. Three little buildings, each with their own monument signs, and instead we put them together in a unified street looking building. And it's because of that we really need another monument sign to help address the retail activity, and so we really find that the signage is an important component. So we hope you consider that. Bus circulation. Let me show you a drawing I have here which just helps a little explain that circulation. This is the plan that shows the easement. This is the existing theater. This is the Frontier Center. Dance studio and so forth. Here's the main Chanhassen Dinner Theater. Number one, there's over 100 new parking stalls This will change the dynamics of how people park in that area, and this is being added not at Phase II, and that's part of our chart on parking I think was misleading. It's really part of Phase I so it's being added right up front. And this line of course is the park and ride. The park and ride building and drop off right here. These dark bus little diagrams here show the buses, how they would circulate. The dashed lines show the turning radius and how they work within the parking lot so they work, they make the tums and it works within the parameters of the design of the bus and their requirements. This once again is a temporary situation. It's not permanent. It's only for a couple of years. Our future road will go to the north is really our most anticipated next improvement, because it allows us to create another little street fagade and add retail along that street. So we anticipate that being really the best circulation for the buses, and with parking and the dance drop off, that starts to happen more intensely after 6:00 and really the buses stop running at about that time, so we'll work to make sure the schedules and the tenants kind of cooperate to make sure we don't create a problem there. But that is a temporary situation. The other thing is, we're going to encourage more people, especially for the dance studio and exercise people to park over here, and we think that's also a good place for pick-up and drop off and we can just reorganize how they use that parking. So this new 100 stalls of parking I think is really going to improve how everyone operates out there and for temporary time should not be a 13 Planning Commission Meeting- September 16, 2003 significant problem. I think then our last comment here was just that you have the plat in front of you. You didn't have that a few days ago and we apologize for that. But all of this we believe we can resolve with the city. The city staff and work out some of these details. We're really here then to answer any of your specific questions. We know there's perhaps some more about lighting but lighting has not settled down on the cinema yet. We're still designing and working that out, so we will be working with staff on that. The general architecture of the building, we've worked out with staff and we think works out quite well. Milo Thompson is here and is here to answer any of your questions about architecture specifically. Material, design, how the buildings work. We've really tried to create something that's really going to add to the city, to this area. We've organized these uses. You have to understand we're kind of, it's redevelopment so we have a lot of parameters that are very difficult to deal with and here it's elevations of adjacent buildings, the kind of configuration that' s already been built and how to adapt to all of it. And so far things are working out and sometimes a little flexibility on the part of the city will be very much appreciated. So that ends our presentation except for any questions you might have. Sacchet: Thank you. Questions from the applicant. Slagle: I have a few. First of all, can you address if you may, any thoughts as to the suggestion or the question regarding the buses going east behind what ! will call the Dinner Theater, which on a number of days would just join another 20-30 buses that are there from special groups and clubs and so forth. John Uban: I do not have the topo for this whole area to show you, but you'll recall there's a steep rise that, this area around the back of the dinner theater is strongly sloping, to the point that I'm sure a bus will not want to go up it. So just paving the existing arrangement does not work. But if you start to grade it out, we get into significant walls to try and protect the existing parking that is at a plateau above, and so there's a lot of cost in trying to create a road back there that's only going to be torn up when we come to do the parking ramp. Why we chose a parking ramp in that specific location is it will have multiple levels that will then be terraced right into the site, so at the very top level can function with the theater. The lowest level will work for bus circulation and when this is completed, our bus circulation is going to go straight through. It will then be part of the ramp, the bus shelter, everything will be built into the ramp, very much like Eden Prairie is today. And that's really the kind of great thing about this plan is that we have these sequence of improvements that come about with the future funding opportunities that Southwest Metro's looking for, for that parking ramp. They get to over double the size of their facility and having that ramp tied in with the other commercial activity. But to try to do improvements today, and kind of waste all that money and not have a good solution, just isn't in the cards. If the city thinks it's a better solution and would like to help on this development, we are not asking for any financial assistance from the city but if this is very important to the city, that might be some way the city could contribute to this project. But I think the best solution, at least for right now is to get our road to the north opened up with Phase II, as soon as possible, which will happen after we get everything leased up and moving on page 1. Slagle: You know if I may. I think you have a wonderful project here but I have to respectfully disagree with the thought that going northward between the two buildings onto 78th, which is going to be a tight turning radius for a bus, which there's not a lot of buses today on that road, and then make your way eastbound to get to 5 or to get to 101, it seems to me to be going into the heart of our city with buses. Where if you really did go east, and I might disagree that the hill would be an enormous cost. I know you didn't use enormous but I think that that could be worked out, but I just want to know your thoughts, and you gave them. I don't know if I necessarily agree, but the thoughts of getting back to Commissioner Feik, of people dropping off 14 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 families and numerous kids that will be going to the cinema, I would think our number one goal, other than the ultimate redevelopment of this property would be safety, because you're going to have your attraction, The lights. The music. This is a destination center and you're suggesting that people, at those two facilities park to the east, which are number 13 and 19 on this page 1. ! don't even see a sidewalk from those parking lots over to the current building. So I guess what I'm saying is, boy all and all I think you're on the right track but from a traffic flow, both pedestrian and automotive/bus, and then I'm going to lastly ask you a question about the southern what I'll call green spaces now, but I do know we did talk about it at our meeting that there would be some parking along the south side of Pauly, which I don't see. Why wouldn't you, if I can ask, why wouldn't you want to keep that southern part of this property in what I'm going to call a green space with trails and perhaps you would have some lighting and you would have vendors with stands or, and I just came from New York over the weekend and I mean Central Park is just a magnet for everything. So I'm just curious as to why you would want to fill that up with parking spots. John Uban: Central Park and the railroad that runs along here I don't think are comparable but. Slagle: Well let's talk green space that might be a little bit. John Uban: It is not an attractive green space along there, and the way it's operated. But if the city can get control of the right-of-way, then there are lots of possibilities, but we can't do anything more because we don't control the railroad. We've taken the parking off, we did at one time look at parking going to the south, but we don't control all that property. We have some of it, but not just enough 10 feet or something like that. Slagle: So you have 10 feet from the south of Pauly Drive and that would be the extent of your land. John Uban: That's the extent of it, yeah. To the railroad. The railroad is, the tracks are offset in the right-of-way so there's actually sort of surplus right-of-way on the north side of the track. So they don't technically shouldn't need quite as much up there, but we know that railroads operate quite slowly, and to resolve something as big, look at decision in years, not days or months or anything like that. So this is our best plan given the land that we do have control of. Slagle: Last question. With respect to the bank and the drive thru. Explain to me, if I'm a customer of this bank, how I would access the drive thru and where I will go once I'm done. John Uban: Sure. The main entrance to the drive thru comes off of Market Street, and there's signage here. Come in. Pull into the lanes specifically designed for the drive thru. It circulates around and underneath the canopy. Exit. Come out around through the parking lot and out this way back. Slagle: Any concerns about once someone is, I mean I think your entrance into the drive thru seems logical and easy. Are you a little concerned with traffic congestion and again pedestrians walking to a movie theater or restaurant and having bank drive thru traffic? John Uban: No. We have sidewalks there on both sides and it doesn't really cross anything of significance. So I'm not concerned about it. We clearly would have liked to have exited out onto Market Street, or Market Boulevard rather, and that just, we figured the city didn't want us to do that. So we had to bring it back through the general circulation of the parking lot. 15 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Slagle: Okay, that's all. Sacchet: Thanks Rich. Kurt. Any questions from the applicant? Papke: Yeah, just to reiterate on a, kind of following on one of Rich's comments and reiterating a question I had before. The turn around to the southwest corner there. So if I understand it correctly your goal here is to make the minimal changes to Pauly Drive. That's your objective here? John Uban: Yes. One thing that we're doing right now it just bumps into parking here so we're creating a road section through here so that Pauly, which we're proposing to rename to Market Street, would come up through here. Actually it will keep on going straight through but at least at this point to go north. Papke: It just seems like the turnaround that currently exists for the park and ride right down there, from which we're going to derive 21 spaces, is that correct? We're going to get 21 spaces out of that and it's going to kind of sit like a little island on there. Can you estimate how many people would actually use those 21 spaces and under what conditions? John Uban: We anticipate that it would all be employee parking. Papke: Employee parking. That would probably be the only people you could get to park there. John Uban: Oh yes exactly but you have to put them somewhere and we'd rather have them out there than sitting right in front of the store where they would always park because they're the first ones to the site. Now we would love to actually move Pauly Avenue to the south, but we don't think that that would create, it lines up with roads on the other side and at this point we don't anticipate city engineering allowing us to do that. So we're caught with that space and we might want to look at a little more efficient parking pattern but at least right now we're just trying to use what's there until a better idea comes along. We will have a pylon sign there, the one that you've looked, and that actually will probably pull it back a little bit more from the right-of-way to give it the kind of visibility. We found that there's a railroad sort of shack that sits right on Market Boulevard on the south side of the tracks, and at least where we have it now we think that shack kind of blocks the view so we're going to pull it back to the east a bit to get out of that. Papke: Did you examine any alternative uses for that space other than 21 parking spaces and a turn around? John Uban: If they still had Fotomarts and things like that, that might work but at least right now we don't see a market for that. Papke: So your answer is no. John Uban: Not at this point. Papke: Okay. That was my only question. Thank you. Sacchet: Thanks Kurt. Bethany. Tjornhom: I don't have any questions. 16 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Bruce. Feik: Yes please. Help me out a little bit with the timeline here. We're talking about temporary conditions with buses and what not. Help me out a little bit in, with your crystal ball, if this goes forward and moves through council, what is your timing of events? How do you see this developing and give me some idea how long temporary is temporary? John Uban: How much is temporary? Feik: Yeah. John Uban: Dan Engelsma is here from Kraus-Anderson. But let me start out and I'll let me correct me if I'm wrong, but what we'd like to do, the purchase of the property is scheduled for November from the city. And at that point the demolition of the bowling alley is the first thing to happen. And then trying to do the footings and some of the utility relocation, some of that can't happen during the winter so we'll pick up again in the spring, but we'd like to be open with this facility a year from now easily. Once that is opened, and it probably will take a year to get full tenancy, to get it filled so there's cashflow, and at that point Bloomberg Companies that owns the other piece where the road would go to the north, that is when we would take a look, is the market there to support the next building, which is about 24,000 square feet right next to the dance studio. And in that area that would redevelop and put the new one, when the market calls for that next building, and we hope that's in 1 to 2 years, that's when that will be built. Feik: Then address the restaurant pad on the north portion. How does that fit into that timing as well then? John Uban: It should happen within the next year. Almost at the same time. At least we're anticipating at this point. Feik: Okay. Those are my questions. Sacchet: I have a few questions as well. The calculations of the, or that's not really calculations. The adding up of the numbers of the parking spaces had me baffled. Because it's not a straight addition. I mean you add them up, you get a different total. John Uban: I apologize that I probably should have brought the new dinner theater south parking up so it's part of Phase I, but when you do calculate, it's probably a typo on the sheet that the numbers I don't think add up correctly. Sacchet: Yeah they don't, that's my point. John Uban: Yeah. Sacchet: So which one is correct, the totals or the small numbers, do you know? John Uban: I don't know because I haven't gone through all this to double check. Sacchet: So we certainly would want that straighten out before it goes to council. That would be good. And then I had the question about the cinema, converting into stadium seating which according to the text seems to be scheduled for before a lot of this development actually takes 17 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 place, but then the plans actually show it, what I think shows the old, the internal so I was just wondering how that fits together. John Uban: The theater, yeah. Sacchet: If you could address that, clear that up for me I appreciate it. Glenn Baird: Good evening, I'm Glenn Baird with the cinema. We have 4, verbally we have 8 stadiums or 8 theaters in our building right now. 4 of them are non-stadium and these 4 here are currently sloped floors and what we'd like to do is, we're targeting January to start. We're going to reduce the number of seats in here when we convert it to stadium so I don't have an exact number in front of me but we're going to be reducing the capacity of those 4 theaters which will help coincide with the parking needs. Sacchet: So you're making 3 out of those 4, is that correct? Glenn Baird: No. They're going to be 4 but for example, this particular theater has 209 seats in it. It's probably going to reduce to approximately 150. And each theater is a little different size and depending on exact layout, it will reduce seating and parking needs. Sacchet: So actually that answers my question because I was thinking you were actually changing the numbers in there but the layout stays the same. Glenn Baird: Yeah, the actual four walls remain the same. Sacchet: The walls stay the same, okay. Glenn Baird: Capacity will reduce. Sacchet: And that will happen before the big development actually takes place on the outside? Glenn Baird: Yes. Sacchet: Okay, that was my question about that one. In terms of the second phase for the cinema, is that tied into the second phase of the whole Market Station? Glenn Baird: We're trying to coordinate that with the construction of the restaurants and the major area out front there. Sacchet: Then I would think that it looks like the second phase for the cinema, there's going to be a challenge with the parking. I guess that will be addressed in the planning phase of that. Glenn Baird: Yes, you're talking about the potential for occupying the alleyway inbetween the two buildings right now? Sacchet: Exactly. Glenn Baird: Yeah, that's pretty much a question right now. It's something we'd like to plan for the future but ! don't think we can, obviously with the number of spaces there now, I don't think we can accommodate any expansion until this overall development with the parking ramp, it all has to come together in order for us to come to the city and request expanding it. 18 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Okay, thank you for answering that. Now with an architectural landscape question with that painted block that's going to be exposed on the west side of the cinema. The staff report says will be mitigated by landscaping. When I looked at your landscaping plan I didn't really see particularly much happening in front of that wall so I wanted a little clarification about that please. On the west side there, yes. John Uban: We truly have not designed anything for that yet. Sacchet: So that's still to be determined? John Uban: That's still to be determined but we have some grade changes there, and we need to work with the cinema and how they're exit doors work into that space, but our initial plan was actually a metal grid, an arbor trellis on the side of the wall so we can get vines and some other things to grow out there, but we need to make sure that can work with the exiting of the theater. And we just haven't worked that out yet, but we do want to treat that space so it's attractive. Sacchet: And then another architectural question, I asked that of staff. The staff report says you have cultured stone. Actually the picture shows cultured stone the full first story in the key areas, like where there are entrances, but staff report makes a statement further design development may result in the stone only being on the low park. At least that's how I'm reading it. And I'd like a little clarification, what are the how come and what are the variables that would possibly make that be not going up and what's the framework? If you could touch on that I'd appreciate it. Milo Thompson: I'm Milo Thompson, architect. Sacchet: Welcome. Milo Thompson: This probably is the best drawing to put up here for that, if you could zoom in on that. Much of this really is rather flexible as you work out the details but as the project stands now we are proposing that the cultured stone would be brought to the top of the windows on the bank on three sides. And that on the entrance, not the entrance. This used to be an entrance tower but I think we've made a very nice improvement by moving the entrance to the office building on the back side. Making it also a front so we don't have a back side to this building. But as a feature for the retail that would occupy that, we are showing stone facing also up to the top of the window in this turret. We show on the, I can also address another question that had to do with the cinema while I'm here and with the same point. The cultured stone that we are proposing is one which simulates a split face so we develop a more refined look to the stone and here you can see on the office building it is used as base. We think that's a good technical detail because the hardy board material normally should not come down to the contact with rain or snow. So that would be continuous as a detail for the office building and elsewhere. Going back to the continuity of that material on the other part of the project, we have a low wall which defines an outdoor seating area, and also enhances the outdoor dining which is under this portico here. This is a covered portico. On the question of the abruptness of the building, one to the other. This probably exaggerates the difference of these buildings, which we consider an advantage here because the cinema truly should stand out. It's a very different kind of building. It's scale is different and there is a strong desire on the part of the owners to not have strict continuity with the others and make this a more unique building, thus the special emphasis on lighting, a little more glamour and animation. When you look at the ends of this building though, here's where you see the abruptness. If you look at it from the other side, this view I think shows the relationship better. Where you can see a screening wall or the screening parapet of the 19 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 cinema wraps around and becomes part of this building so there's a sloped roof here. It ends in a gabled form at the end making a kind of a special feature at the corner. You begin to see then an architectural compatibility is more grounds at that point. There is also the discussion of the stone differences. It's felt that we should keep the masonry basis to these buildings, and in this case however it should be more dressed and this is a more traditional cut stone look, though it is a cultured stone or pre-cast of some sort. And then finally the material on the restaurant kitchen part, there's a wing of the restaurant which, there was just mention about the west wall here and difficult, unresolved as yet detail of the grade changes here and we're working on that. But at this point these would be exits for the theaters and just behind this building we would have a service area for the kitchen areas and the waste, material in and waste out tucked around that comer as well as screened mechanical equipment. So this wing represents basically the back of the house, the kitchen part of the restaurant. And it too is thought to have the facade of cultured stone. Gary Milne Rojek: My name is Gary Milne Rojek. I'm also with Bentz/Thompson/Rietow and Milo and I are partners. Just in a little further clarification of this issue of the hardy board siding and the cultured stone. One of the issues, it's purely an issue of development, or further development because there are certain ends of the building that end in a shed or more of a shed arrangement. For example, this is hard to see but for example on the retail and office end of the building, that ends in a motif that has that hardy plank siding with the cultured stone base low. On other portions such as the bank and the turret, we're showing those as the cultured stone. However we'd like to reserve the option as we develop this further and to be able to balance the entire building against that design. Sacchet: So you'd rather not be locked in at this point? Gary Milne Rojek: Correct. It's purely that that hasn't gone through it's last development. Sacchet: Okay, that answers the question, thank you. Another quick question about toning down the lights from the cinema. Obviously that's, we've heard some comments that you'd rather not do that. Could you briefly address that in terms of how important is it to have all these chase lights and neon strips and up lights and do you see flexibility with that? Milo Thompson: The owner may want to comment too but I would just offer these observations. On the elevation, there's a strong protecting expression here in the canopy that permits drop off and waiting and containing interesting things of posters for coming attractions in these niches, and to make this more attractive and lively, we are showing decorative lighting at the leading edge of this that runs around this side and on the east. The lighting that we were showing included not only lighting mounted on this canopy, which shows in better detail right here, and in cross section here. These are the lights that will be mounted on top of the canopy and lighting the face of this building and the signage here. Now that particular light could be very easily controlled so there would be no spillover. I mean it's focused directly on the wall. And you can assure that it doesn't spill over into any areas seen from the outside. The additional light, and I think these were the lights staff was commenting on, lighting the top of the turret and in particular this finial, and again those lights can be shuttered down so there's very little light escaping the object that it lights. So it could be, this could be managed from a technical point of view that would take care of the objection. Now we don't feel that this probably is absolutely essential. It's nice to light a feature but if that's not desired in the city, it's probably not as important as other kinds of lighting, which in the spirit of classic and traditional cinemas, is a lot about light. And things that flash and animation and so, and located in the middle of the site as this is, there's real need to bring some festive look at me sort of lighting. 2O Planning Commission Meeting- September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Okay, thank you. Last question, just to clarify when you presented first about the Southwest Metro you mentioned, and you actually have this written in your write up that's point number 31 that the bus circulation plan has been submitted to Southwest Metro. They have not yet responded? John Uban: It has been submitted to them. Bob Worthington is here from Southwest Metro and he could respond directly, but this has been submitted and I believe the Board has approved everything. Sacchet: Is that something that could be addressed from the Southwest Metro, without putting you on the spot? If you can, that would be very helpful. Bob Worthington: I'm Bob Worthington from Southwest Metro Transit and to answer your question directly, the commission at their meeting earlier did review the plan and recommended an approval for the concept as it was presented. There's still some fine tuning that has to be done in terms of the language of the easement, the easements, the number of parking stalls, the design of the shelter, etc, but those can be easily taken care of within the timeframe of the approval process here with the city. Sacchet: So basically Southwest Metro is in agreement with this layout? Bob Worthington: That's correct, we are. We are. Sacchet: Okay, thank you very much. That's questions from the applicant. Now this is a public hearing. I'd like to open the public hearing. Invite anybody who likes to comment about this proposal, come up and state your name and address for the record and let us know what you have to say. Is there anybody who'd like to address this item? Seeing nobody, I'm closing the public hearing. Bring it back to the commission. Time for comments from the commission. Who would like to start? Do you want to start Bethany? Ladies first. Alright. Tjornhom: I'm sure we'll hear about the bus situation and everything from Rich so I'm just going to say that, when I got this copy of the site, I loved the architecture. I thought you really did a good job using the examples you gave us at the earlier meetings which each of you had taken with existing buildings in Chanhassen so I thought it was really nice. And I'm all for lights I guess on the cinema and I'm for the monument signs telling people where it is. How to get there and what's there. It just makes sense because if I'm going to, I mean I have a hard time right now finding the cinema. It's not marked very well you know and so I just think it's a service to the community by showing people where to turn, what's there and what they can do so ! guess that's my only comment that I am in support of the monument signs and the flashing lights. Sacchet: Thanks Bethany. Bruce, want to take it from here? Feik: Sure. I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'll start with the up lighting. I'm not comfortable with lighting the top, the very top of the theater, particularly what I'm going to call, I don't know what the technical term. It looks like a weather vane. We've had other applications before this body before and we were pretty firm regarding up lighting and for that matter I would like to be consistent on that. As for the buses, I know Southwest Metro signed off on this but I'm really not comfortable. I'm not comfortable to the extent that I would give up parking in exchange, temporary parking in exchange for a different mode of getting the buses back out on a temporary basis. A variance. I would give up, and the applicant's really going to hate this, I 21 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 would give up the pad restaurant in it's entirety until, based upon the parking, until we could, if we needed to trade parking, until we could get Phase II. I really, really, really don't want the buses to go by the dance studio and back through the parking lot. I think that's really not what we should be doing. So I've got serious concerns on that. As for the monument signage, I think one monument sign for the bank portion is more than adequate. If they need to trade off signage, given the proximity of the pad restaurant to Market, I certainly think they could trade a monument sign for the pad restaurant. The pad restaurant could get rid of their monument and give it to the bank, trade it off, but I don't really see the need for four monument signs going down that stretch from, you know starting at the railroad track and ending at the back of the hotel. So I'm in strong disagreement on the reducing or sticking with the number of signage's, and obviously my big one is the buses. Quite frankly I don't think I can go with this proposal as drafted based upon the parking, without some serious changes here. That's it. Sacchet: Thanks Bruce. Feik: Though I like the project and I know we need to have something downtown. You know I know we need to get this resolved. Sacchet: Thanks Bruce. Want to jump in Kurt? Papke: Yeah. I've been very impressed by the cooperation, the cohesiveness of the plan here. I think the cooperation between the cinema and Bloomberg and Kraus-Anderson is fantastic to see something that's so, that fits so well together. I think the plan is overall very good. I don't really have any issues with the lighting. I think this is kind of a showplace situation here. It is a cinema. I don't really have any issues with that. The traffic situation is going to be a real sticking point here. We represent to some extent the residents of Chanhassen and let me try to put this as a very brief story. Imagine I'm 15 years younger and instead of taking my daughter off to college I ride Southwest Metro every day and I have a 3 year old daughter that goes to the dance studio. And today I park my car in a very easily accessed location to pick up the bus that gets right back on the highway and I'm good to go. No issues. And now in the new configuration, instead of very quickly getting in and out to my parking lot to grab the bus, now I have to drive all the way to the interior of the parking lot in order to park my car to take the bus out in the morning, and when I get dropped off in the evening, I see the bus. I get off the bus and I see the bus going around the circle here and practically running over my daughter and wife as they exit from the dance studio, okay. And I say, what was the City thinking when they did this? Okay. This makes no sense at all to me so I think there's going to be some real visceral reactions to the circulation proposal here. I mean it's just not drawings on a sheet of paper. These are human beings and little kids that are going to the dance studio so I think this is going to be a real sticking point for me. That's it. Sacchet: Thanks Kurt. Rich. Slagle: I won't touch too much on those topics other than to say that I believe that this proposal as it is in front of us, I cannot support due to the traffic. Architecturally I think it's fine. Mr. Thompson, thanks for clarifying my question on the difference between the cinema and the restaurant. I think conceptually it's great but I'm really in a sense questioning the thinking of this pattern because if this is a destination center, which to me means people. People would be at the forefront of this thinking as to how people move from their vehicles or sidewalks, and so I think in the combination of lack of sidewalks, I do think there needs to be more sidewalks. Not because I like sidewalks but I truly think from a safety issue, coupled with the fact that we are talking about having buses and a hundred and some odd cars every day, in the morning and the 22 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 afternoon, and I have to at least to the fellow commissioners question, I don't mean to question the intent of the point but 6:00 1 think was the time that someone said tends to wind down. Well that would tell me then that most people downtown are having to get off of work at 5:00. Well I work in Coon Rapids and I make the drive typically leaving at 5:00-5:30, and traffic is still busy. Heading out to the southwest at 6:30-7:00. So I think I would probably move that time 7:00-7:30 before it quiets down which most of us are going to a movie at 7:00 because you've got to get to bed at 10:00 or whatever the case may be, so in the end of this, it's a wonderful project. We need it but I have to tell you either I would be supporting tabling it and asking the applicant really to come back with some additional ideas and concepts. I'm still waiting to hear an answer as to why we can't go eastbound for the bus, other than there's a hill. Almost asked Southwest Metro but it sounds like they've approved it. I hope they raised that concern in their meeting or at least an option. If they didn't maybe they should. But no, I think this is enough of a reason not to support it. Or table it in the sense of supporting it and hoping they come back with some. Feik: Mr. Chair? I think on this issue is I think we have to be fully aware of the nebulousness of the word temporary. Temporary could be 2 years. It could be a year. That would be wonderful. Temporary unfortunately in marketing conditions could be 5 years, and this could be a situation that is going to be, that we could live with for way too long. Slagle: Let me just add one last point to that. Commissioner Feik's point. This, I believe this application asks the city and it's residents to put up with, lack of a better term, this configuration of traffic pattern for the temporary time until market conditions allow you to go to Phase II. My question is why wouldn't we put it on at least one of the partners of this application to allow buses to go to the south of their property where again there's been many cases on a daily basis 20-30 buses there anyway. In the parking lot, and it would avoid all of the problems that we've brought up today. I guess I don't know why we wouldn't do that. Sacchet: Well I've got a few comments too, not to be repetitive. To address some of the points the applicant brought forth. I would ask to work with staff about the drive aisle width. It looks like they're intending to have the main road to the full width, but possibly a little more leeway between the parking. That'd be a work with staff situation. The lighting, I really don't think up lights is acceptable because that's how we treat everybody in the city, and I think those parapets and things that can be lighted from above with down lighting. I mean the only thing you would have a hard time lighting is the thing on the very tip, and I wonder if that could be internally lit if you want to light it. But that would be consistent with how we treat everybody else in the city. We're pretty clear about that. Drainage between the building, I think that's a work with staff situation. Mitigating, I think the extra landscaping, if you'd like to have less of those landscape islands in the parking lot, we can do something else maybe to mitigate that to balance the scale. So far that's mostly work with staff items. I don't think that would be reasons to table. The two monument signs, I think it's a large building. There's a lot of tenants in there so personally I could be convinced that it needs two of them. Also is that unresolved situation with the painted block on the kitchen side of the restaurant on the west side of the cinema. It's a work with staff thing. Cleaning up the parking numbers is definitely something that needs to be done before it goes to council. Now the big thing, and I'm torn whether this is a reason to table or whether this is something that we just want further study. What I'm hearing from fellow commissioners that the thing with the buses is enough reason to table. I could go either way on that one. It's definitely an issue and it, I really dislike the idea that we're kind of having this whole park and ride as an after thought. It's not the first thought, and I understand that. I mean you're setting up businesses here. You're creating a big business center, entertainment center and the park and ride is not lucrative from a financial viewpoint. However, from a city viewpoint, from a community standpoint it's extremely important and I certainly agree with staff that you want to make sure it's 23 Planning Commission Meeting- September 16, 2003 properly marked on the site. Not just as an after thought there, and I would go as far as also looking at this circulation thing as it's more than an after thought. It's an oversight. I mean it's encouraging to hear from the Southwest Metro people that this seems acceptable. From a community standpoint it's not really acceptable to have these buses go right in front of the door of a dance studio. Right in front of the door of the cinema. And ! think it would be imperative to find a better solution. Now my question is, is this a reason to table or not. That's the part I'm not totally clear about. I'm totally clear about that alternatives need to be studied, need to be looked at, and there must be a better solution. Feik: I'm prepared to deny or table. Sacchet: Deny or table, okay. Hang on. I would not think that this is a reason to deny, that's my personal opinion. I would be able to go along with a table though. What's the time line Kate on this application? Aanenson: You do have additional time. The review deadline date is 10/29. Sacchet: 10/29, and having heard from the applicant that you're looking at starting the activity in November, it would not really upset your time line if we take a little time so I think in that context I would be in favor of tabling. Are there any more comments from commission? Aanenson: Can I just add one other thing? Sacchet: Yes, go ahead Kate. Aanenson: There's an agreement with performance, and maybe the assistant city manager wants to comment on that but there is a performance time line with the city as far as when to move this forward as part of their purchase agreement, and I don't have those dates in front of me and I need to clarify it with Justin. Sacchet: Would you want to address that Justin please. Miller: Good evening, Justin Miller, Assistant to the City Manager. When this proposal originally came to the City Council or to the EDA I should say, they were very specific in that they wanted to see very strict deadlines on this proposal. One of them is that the site plan approval would be gained by September 30th. There's a little bit of wiggle room in there because they did extend the 30 day clause. I' m not totally sure if those 30 days apply to this section of the purchase agreement, but there is some pretty strict time lines on this. Once it is sent to council for their approval, I believe the November timeframe was talked about for closing. There will be some time after City Council approval that there will need to be some things to get in order for closing, so obviously the sooner this is approved the better for the city and for the developer. Sacchet: When is the next Planning Commission meeting this could be addressed if we table Kate? Aanenson: Next one would be October 7th. Sacchet: October 7~. Then it would go to council like mid-October so that would definitely curtail a little bit. 24 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Aanenson: Unless you wanted to hold a special meeting, which has been done before too. I guess the question needs to be asked too is, if I may, if the applicant has the ability and wants to take that time to work through that issue. Does that make sense? Sacchet: Can you repeat please? Aanenson: Part of your goal is to ask of them to come back and study it. I think maybe the question should be asked to them, does that make sense to ask them? Sacchet: Yeah, actually you wanted to say something and if you want to please address us, that's be good. We don't normally take comments at this stage of discussion but since it's a big, ! support this project very much. I think we all expressed that we really like this project. We just have this bone here we're chewing on with this bus thing. Clayton Johnson: I'm Clayton Johnson. I represent Bloomberg Companies and Market Square Partners, the partnership and let me just give you a little history. This site, the park and ride easement is not on our land. It's on the city's land. The city solicited proposals for development on this site, which there have been four. All of which have failed. In our opinion, the reason they failed is the location of the park and ride. Since we own the land to the east we were the only ones that could come up with a solution of moving park and ride inside, off of that very prime corner that's going to generate a lot of tax revenue. But we have to operate within what we can control. In other words, we're not, we have leases on some of these properties that you would like to tear down in Phase II and in phase 3, and we do too, but these are subject to leases that have to be, we have to work through that. And so the choice was, do we wait monnana until we can do this whole big project, all three phases which may be 7 or 8 years, or do we attack it in a phased mode, and that's what we came to the EDA with and they supported that. And honestly we've got the best, John Uban, I don't know who we can find that can do a better job of looking at the traffic patterns and so on. It may not be ideal in terms of the traffic pattern of the buses but I happen to say I'm hard pressed, unless these guys, I don't know what 2 weeks is going to do in terms of being able to give us those alternatives. We can't go through that road. We'd have to re-build that road. It involves going through land that's currently under lease to other people and major costs. We're coming to you with the only proposal, out of the four, that's so far gotten this far. And the city has all these parameters. Million one on the land. Park and ride. No city assistance. We've worked within all those parameters and done the best we can. And yes, the bus is going to go in front of the dance studio, and yes the dance studio, that's an issue right now. It's an issue right now because people don't want to park more than 5 feet from the door. We know that and that's just something, so I just don't know what 2 weeks is going to buy, and if John or Milo have any ideas, Dan, I'd be happy to address it but you know we're working within all of these parameters of cost and options and you know I don't think we can come with anything that's significantly different. The idea of removing the pad site for the second restaurant. The kills the deal. That kills the deal. We need the revenue from that pad site in order to pay the million 150. If the city wants to take a discount from the million 150, sure. Eliminate the pad site, sure. Sacchet: I appreciate your frankness. Clayton Johnson: Thank you. Sacchet: Bruce did you want to? 25 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Feik: Yes, I'd like to continue this discussion a little bit further. As the gentleman said, temporary could be 7 or 8 years. Sacchet: Yes. Clayton Johnson: Or it could be 3. Feik: Albeit. I guess I would be willing to, and we could get this done in 2 weeks, is I would be willing to entertain a variance on parking to re-configure the egress shall we say for the buses so that they come in. They make an immediate sort of U turn and come out that first aisle. Get rid of, I played with it a little bit while I was up there. You get rid of those 18 stalls or whatever is on the north side of one island and you've got to clip the corner. You've got to clip the comer so you're taking part of the 20 stalls on the south end of the aisle to get back out. Yeah, that works. Aanenson: Where are you talking about? Feik: Well, move your pencil down and you take that aisle there, the drive aisle going west. You take the first 18 stalls out on the north side. Aanenson: You mean these right here? Feik: Yep, the first 18 on the easterly portion of that drive aisle. That gives you the bus turn around. You drop 3, 4, 5 parking stalls on the south portion, westerly corner. Sacchet: A place to make a turn around is what he's saying? Feik: Yeah. Get the buses out of the, you know. And then we can restore those parking spaces at a later date. For 22, 23 parking stalls, I really don't want to sacrifice any kids. it ain't worth it. And I would much prefer to do a variance on parking then, and I think that's doable in 2 weeks. Sacchet: Question of Kate. If we would ask for a bus turn around in that corner, and that would take away parking spaces, as Commissioner Feik suggested we'd be willing to sacrifice for this, would that need a variance for one thing, beyond what's already in front of us? Aanenson: I believe so. Again we'd have to look at the overall mix. Sacchet: Because what I'm trying to determine is, is this something that could be clarified with going to council or is this something that should come back here? Aanenson: Well it was noticed with variances so you would just add that as an additional variance with your findings being the fact that it provides for better circulation and that's the reason you would support it, and if that was part of your motion, it could move forward. And with the direction that the staff work with the applicant and Southwest Metro to provide better circulation between now and the time it goes to council. So you wouldn't have to see it back. Sacchet: Because I mean, we hear a lot of dramatic pictures here and I think we need to balance that a little bit, I mean just for discussion amongst here now. I mean these buses are not going to be speeding around these comers. These buses are going to be doubly careful going around there. There could be speed bumps, there could be things. Mitigating factors but it's, I think we have to nevertheless in order to be fair, you have to be careful that we not over dramatize the aspect. I mean it's not ideal, these buses going in front of these stores, but on the other hand, it's not going 26 Planning Commission Meeting- September 16, 2003 to be a like a street with traffic. I mean you'd expect any driver in a bus to be real careful in a situation like that. Kurt. Papke: What is the current bus traffic through there? How many buses per day are we talking about? Aanenson: I'm not sure if someone from Southwest Metro could say. Bob Worthington: ...unfortunately I'm not a part of the operations side of the organization so I couldn't give you a definite answer in terms of number of buses. We do have more than 10 that go through the peak hour pick up and delivery of passengers at this location. Feik: That's the peak time. Bob Worthington: That's about the best I can offer as an answer at this point. Sacchet: We're not talking buses by every couple minutes. I mean we're talking a bus usually maybe one an hour and during peak time maybe half hour or something like that. Feik: Well they've every 10-15 minutes in the evening and obviously the morning is fairly irrelevant. You know it's 6:00-7:00 in the morning. Not too many people are going to the movies. But you've got Saturdays and you've got Sundays and. Sacchet: Right, definitely. Feik: I mean I personally think, and I'm not the engineering and planning department here but, and I would like to hear the applicant's comments regarding the ability to accommodate that kind of a turn around that I talked about. Could that work and is it, with the 22 stalls or temporary might be, or whatever it is, which might be as the gentleman said, 7 or 8 years, Aanenson: Just to be clear too on one issue and that's the fact that the parking easement that runs on the property that they have to accommodate is for 120 stalls. If you take those out, it just means reconfiguration of how many are assigned to Southwest Metro. Just to be clear. Feik: Correct. Or they just be, they're re-signed in another area. Aanenson: Exactly. Feik: Right. Sacchet: Would the applicant want to make a statement about the possibility of having an actual turn around area in that corner? The feasibility of it or the problematic aspect or how easy it is and so forth. John Uban: Yes, we would like to make a statement about that. Sacchet: Thought so. John Uban: Part of that area is already existing parking and islands that are landscaped and so forth and we have a general reluctance to kind of tear into that. We certainly could explore with Southwest Metro, if there's some other configuration of a turn around might work for them but 27 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 the thing is, I don't think at peak hours, I think this is, I don't have the specific information to tell you but I think there's a fear that you might have that is greater than reality. Realize that buses are everywhere and they tend to operate the most in fairly dense urban situations where you have a lot of pedestrians and they're basically there at the sidewalk and that is the condition under which they're designed to operate, and they have a very good pedestrian safety record. So I am not at all afraid of buses going around next to sidewalks where people are crossing and waiting. And I think that the frequency of it is very low when you think about the interface with the dance studio and so, I mean clearly we can bring you better information on how that would operate. We could explore some other turn around but I think it's going to be a significant expense that somehow has to get incorporated into this. That particular location is also, we're trying to make sure that we don't physically remove parking that the theater now uses. I mean that's another issue for us. And so that parking or turn around idea does physically remove parking that is now used by the theater. So that's an issue. My bottom line is, we could come back in 2 weeks and just share information but we really do need to move this forward to the council. If you'd like us to work with Southwest Metro and just bring you the facts and see what else can be done, we'd be happy to do that. Specifically 2 weeks from now, I understand it would be a meeting just for that and see if we could at least get more informed about what is really going on and what the fears might really be. And we'd be happy, we don't want you to be afraid of something that we're just not ready to give you lots of detailed data on tonight. We didn't think that was a significant issue at this point. Sacchet: Well, appreciate that. Thank you very much. Yes. Papke: We haven't talked much about the planned Phase II northern egress here, you know going straight north from the park and ride. Would there be any way we could use that to solve the problem? Is there any way to accelerate that particular piece'?. Just be able to get the path through a northern egress. John Uban: I don't have the detailed plans to show you but there's a significant amount of work to build that particular road. We even think there might be some, if you look at the back side of the theater, there's some pretty good utilities in there as well and that is another element we have to get, work with. Also, to really make it work well, I believe we have to adjust the sort of architecture of the side of the theater as well, so it isn't as simple as just kind of paving a road up there. And we certainly could explain that to you in more detail but it's not just, it's not as easy as it looks is the bottom line. Papke: The bottom line is that's not an option at this time I'm hearing. John Uban: Right. Sacchet: Alright, thank you very much. I think we need to move ahead and we have quite a spread here of feelings how hard we want to press this bus issue. All the way from people I think denying or tabling to tabling or moving it through. If we deny it it goes to City Council with that recommendation. If we table it, then it has a 2 weeks wait. If we approve it go through with conditions, they can work with these recommendations and concerns we have before they go to council, so that's basically the 3 options. Is there any comment? Feik: I just have one more. With all due respect to the applicant, I'm looking at the as-built right now, and the number of islands that you're already modifying and changing, the cost issue to do this turn around really doesn't wash in my mind. We're removing potentially part of the south end of one island and you're already reconfiguring and probably starting over on this westerly 28 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 island of this other one so from a cost issue that one doesn't hold water in my mind. I still feel very strongly about this. I'll leave it at that. Sacchet: Okay. Slagle: My last comment is, I'm in support of everything about this project, including lighting, signage, you name it with the exception of this traffic pattern. And the traffic pattern is a big enough reason to table it or deny it. Sacchet: Well, anyone dare to attempt a motion here? Feik: I move we table it. Sacchet: We have a motion to table. Is there a second? Slagle: Second. Sacchet: We have a motion, we have a second. Feik moved, Slagle seconded that the Planning Commission table the Market Street Station proposal. All voted in favor, except Tjornhom who abstained and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 0 to 1. Sacchet: Do you want to comment why you're abstaining? Tjornhom: I guess Southwest Metro came through and approved the route. They approved the whole scenario of the buses coming through and I don't know, I feel like there are buses that run through downtown Minneapolis on a continual basis and no one gets hit, but that's just my opinion. You know if I'm going to cross the street with my 3 year old, I'm going to look 2, 3, 4 times to make just no one hits us no matter where I am and so I just don't think it's an issue. Sacchet: Alright, thank you very much. Looks like we see you back in 2 weeks, and again I want to emphasize that we do like your project. That we do support it but really the issue that we would like to look at is this traffic situation. To have an understanding, a grasp what the alternatives are. If there are none, there are none but it hasn't been studied and we'd like to see that. Okay. Thank you very much. Slagle: Point of reference? Sacchet: Yes, go ahead. Slagle: Can I ask staff if we can get from Southwest Metro their thoughts on what was submitted to Southwest Metro as far as the plan. Aanenson: Yes. We'll also get the number of buses that come through and yes. And just for clarification, that next meeting is October 7th. It's actually we have an extra week so it's 3 weeks. Sacchet: It's 3 weeks from now. Okay, we'll see you back in 3 weeks. Let's take a 5 minute break. We'll reconvene at 9:15 sharp. 29 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY PLAT TO REPLAT 3.63 ACRES INTO 7 SINGLE FAMILY LOTS WITH VARIANCES, AND A WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT, LOCATED AT THE SOUTHWEST INTERSECTION OF LAKE LUCY ROAD AND POWERS BOULEVARD, BURLWOOD ADDITION, EPIC DEVELOPMENT, LLC. Public Present: Name Address Laurie & Jon Steckman David Smith Bob Martinka Mike Cuccia Kent Kelly Bob Christensen Larry & Kathy Kerber Rich Rogatz Perry Ryan Kevin Grafft 1215 Lake Lucy Road 6645 Mulberry Circle East 6650 Powers Boulevard 6722 Powers Boulevard 6539 Gray Fox Curve 6648 Powers Boulevard Powers Boulevard 3441 St. Paul Avenue, Minneapolis 430 Lafayette Avenue, Excelsior 6726 Powers Boulevard Sharmeen AI-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. Slagle: Your last drawing you showed I think, is it Kohman and Infanger? AI-Jaff: Yes. Slagle: Could subdivide their lots to additional properties... Al-Jaff: Yes. Slagle: Okay. So basically if that was the case, if you go back to your Option B. If you went back to Option B or Option C, did those take into account the additional two homes or do they assume right now that Kohman and Infanger, if that's how you pronounce it. If not I apologize. It only looks like there's two lots that. A1-Jaff: Correct, and I don't know how viable this option is any more only because this parcel has been platted. Slagle: Okay. Okay, so. A1-Jaff: You have a neck lot or a flag lot here, and it does not allow for the subdivision of Kohman and Infanger's properties. Slagle: So it might be, for our purpose tonight, assume that they probably won't subdivide, or can't any further. Those two lots. AI-Jaff: Under scenario E, Option E, because that's what was adopted by the City Council, they will be able to. 3O Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Well, let me clarify. I mean the way I understand it from the staff report, this is history. Option E was adopted. Is basically where we're at. That's the foundation we're working from, The rest is just a story. I mean that doesn't have any bearing on our considerations here tonight, isn't that? Al-Jaff: That's correct. I just wanted to tell you how we got to this point. Sacchet: Right, and I think that's important for everybody. A1-Jaff: And from a policy standpoint, we've amended our ordinances. Private streets. Neck lots. All of these are variances. Sacchet: So with the Option E they have the possibility to subdivide those two lots that you've shown us? So that' s not really a point for discussion is it? AI-Jaff: With Option E? Sacchet: Yes. A1-Jaff: Kohman, Infanger can subdivide. Sacchet: And that's what the current situation is. A1-Jaff: Correct. Sacchet: Okay. Slagle: That will be 14 and 17. Okay. So my question is this, the Chair is obviously correct in that Option E is the only thing we're looking at. I just want to be clear. A1-Jaff: Correct. Slagle: The City Council approved this option that has in essence 4 private. Sacchet: We don't have any legal over that. Slagle: I understand. I'm just, I mean. A1-Jaff: Now remember, this was approved back in '95-96. And this is the basis that we were working off of, and this is the direction that we gave the applicant. Slagle: Okay. Sacchet: Did you have something too Bruce? Feik: Yes, Option E, I want to clarify something that I'm seeing here. On Option E the private lot which goes to the north which goes to Lake Lucy Road, on the plans I've got they show access onto Powers inbetween Lots 3 and 4. Does your plan show that as well? Saam: I could clarify that. That's not an access. It's meant as a partial hammerhead turn around. So it won't actually connect into the Powers Boulevard pavement. 31 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Feik: Okay, that was my question, thank you. Sacchet: Oh it doesn't connect? Saam: No, it's not proposed to. Sacchet: Okay. Well that's important to know. Saam: Just the turn around for the private street. Feik: That was my only question, thank you. Sacchet: Alright, you want to go on Sharmeen please. Al-Jaff: So as part of the Golden Glow Acres, we, Mr. Ravis dedicated the right-of~way for the bubble of the cul-de-sac right here. The intent was to facilitate the future construction of the street. If this street was built, this private street would then be closed off. Traffic would be redirected to the bubble of the cul-de-sac and then out to Powers Boulevard. Sacchet: Including that house between the cul-de-sac and Powers? Al-Jarl: That's the intent. Sacchet: So that house that's currently accessing to the east would then access to the west. A1-Jaff: Correct. This is what it would end up going. Sacchet: Alright. Just to clarify that. Thanks. Al-Jaff: And again, this was for safety reasons. Sacchet: And that was decided, that foundation that they're building from. Al-Jaff: There are conditions of approval on the Golden Glow Acres that reflect that basically if the cul-de-sac is built, that this would be closed off. Sacchet: And is it accurate to assume that when this discussion happened, the then residents of those parcels that we're actually looking at tonight, had their involvement, every possibility to be involved as much as they wanted in that decision, correct? A1-Jaff: Now, please bear in mind that the only people that remain from the original group are Mr. and Mrs. Infanger, Mr. Kohman, Mr. and Mrs. Kerber. Everyone else is new. Sacchet: Is new. But nevertheless, these agreements were a part of the public record that were made at that point. A1-Jaff: Correct. Sacchet: Okay. 32 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 AI-Jaff: And when this was happening, the only individual we were working with was Mr. Ravis who resided right here. Slagle: Is it true that he is, if I read right, he has sold that property? A1-Jaff: Yes. Long gone. Sacchet: Okay. Continue please. Sharmeen AI-Jaff continued with the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Questions from staff. Who wants to start? Kurt, do you want to start? Papke: One clarification on the change to item 11, and the item 11 itself. What's the rationale for closing that during construction? Saam: It is a county road there, Powers Boulevard. They want to limit direct accesses off of a county road, so with the development of this, there's no need for that gravel driveway, so we want to just have a condition saying that with the development it's got to be closed. That's the only reasoning. Sacchet: Rich, no questions? Bethany? Tjornhom: Just for my own interest. What kind of outlet structure is needed to control the water discharged from the pond? What does that mean? Saam: It's basically a man hole with two different holes in it to let the water in, and they're at different elevations and those elevations control the normal water level of a pond. Basically where the water's going to be in the pond. And it's something with every development that we require as a standard item. Tjornhom: Okay, that's it. Sacchet: Bruce. Feik: Wetland. I did not see that these were being replaced at a 2:1 ratio. A1-Jaff: They are under, they have to, that's state law. Well if you look on page 18, condition number 1. When it says wetland replacement shall occur in a manner consistent with Minnesota Wetland Conservation Act and the number, that's what. Feik: And this would qualify for 2 to 17 Okay. That was my only question, thank you. Al-Jaff: I don't think Lori would let that one go by. Sacchet: Quick additional questions. Like we've seen there's a new letter here from the Martinka's. The Martinka's. I was just wondering with that temporary cul-de-sac being built, would the Martinka's also access that temporary cul-de-sac? Is that something that's been looked at? Al-Jarl: It's a public right-of-way. 33 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Saam: I would guess since the private, their existing private driveway is going to remain with this plan, they would access their site off of that. But they certainly have the right to go on the public right-of-way. However it wasn't going to be paved. There was not going to be a paved connection between the existing private driveway and the new public cul-de-sac. Do you follow that? Sacchet: Okay. So they could potentially keep their current access... Saam: Yes, that was the plan. That was the plan. Sacchet: ...pretty much parallel to the cul-de-sac, which yeah I mean they're in their rights for doing that. Couple of other engineering things Matt. Bethany touched on the water, storm water situation. It talks about the infrastructure downstream from the culvert being kind of lacking or not quite there enough, could you tell me a little bit more about that? Saam: I'm sorry, I didn't follow you. The infrastructure downstream from what? Sacchet: Yeah, presently there's an old public storm water infrastructure downstream from the culvert. I'd like to understand that a little more. Saam: Maybe I can clarify this showing you the overall area. Let's just zoom in on this. Maybe a little more Nann. Thank you. Here's the site, and there's proposed pond basically right there. Our nearest existing storm sewer is down here. Basically at the corner of that street. Mulberry Circle I believe it is. We have no storm sewer along Lake Lucy Road between that catch basin at the street and the Kerber property. So what we're proposing as a condition and what's in the staff report is to put that outlet control structure in the pond and basically pipe from the pond in our right-of-way down, and let them connect into that existing catch basin. Sacchet: Okay, that's good to know. Matt, it also talks about storm water from the temporary cul-de-sac. Where would that go? Is there an idea of what happens with that? Saam: That's something that we need to discuss more with their engineer, myself and Lori and...but yeah, it's basically the storm water coming off this temporary cul-de-sac. We don't see a need for them to build a big pond just for this little street at this time. Now when this all develops, and I think Lori added something in the staff report that we'll work with the developer and the existing property owners to look at a long term solution to the storm water. Sacchet: Okay. And then it talks about additional right-of-way might be needed on the north side for Lake Lucy. Does that have an impact at all at the current plat? With the lots. Does it accommodate this? Saam: A little bit but I think we've solved it. What I'm referring to is up here on Lake Lucy Road. As other sites to the west have developed, Lake Lucy Ridge, Ashling Meadows, some other ones that developed before you all were on the Planning Commission, we acquired additional right-of-way along Lake Lucy. Lake Lucy's a collector road. By code we need 80 feet of right-of-way there so with development, if we're lacking in right-of-way, we obtain additional right-of-way as the properties develop. So what we're requesting, I believe there's about 33 feet of right-of-way there now. So if you cut the road in half, half of 80's 40 so we're requesting an additional about 7 feet so we'll have 40 feet of right-of-way there. And how that, the implication to the plat is that all these lots are pretty much at the minimum for width and everything so what 34 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 we're proposing to do is just slide this street down the 6 to 7 feet that we would need in order to gain the right-of-way here. The street would be just off set I mean by 5-6 feet from existing Shenandoah Circle. We believe we can live with that. It's not 30 feet or 100 feet. It's basically right across the street. Sacchet: So you would shift the whole thing south? Saam: Yes, that's what we'd propose to do. Sacchet: Okay. Saam: Let me just point out, that way the applicant wouldn't lose any lots. Sacchet: Okay. Otherwise it would have an impact. Saam: Potentially, yeah. Sacchet: Okay. The trees. The trees. The dear trees. That's a little fuzzy in this proposal. I mean if the staff report says some of the trees were counted actually are not really on the property, but then on the other hand it looks like it was re-calculated. Basically to come up with the number of how many trees need to be replaced, so staff is satisfied with that? AI-Jaff: Yes. Sacchet: As a condition number 2, minimum of 3 overstory trees shall be required in front of each of these lots. These lots are not that huge. Is there enough room for a driveway and 3 trees? Without crowding them, we think there is? A1-Jaff: According to the city forester. Sacchet: According to the city forester, okay. Okay we addressed this one. I think that's my questions. Thank you very much. With that, would the applicant want to come forward and address us please. State your name and address for the record and let us know what you have to say please. Rich Ragatz: Rich Ragatz, 3441 St. Paul Avenue, Minneapolis. And I would like to start out again, I'm going to have to give a little history of things in a minute here but I've been working with Larry and Kathy Kerber on this 5.17 acres since April and I think before we get into the specifics of the development and why I think it's something that should be approved, I wanted to get into the history so you can understand why we're at this point on a relatively small site like this, doing two phases. So I guess to start out with the history. I've been working with Sharmeen and Matt, as she said since April, and went in there and talked to them several times and had several different proposals that I brought forth and each time I was pretty much shot down because there's two main things that we have to do here. We have to, safety's a big issue and the second one is you have to allow the two people on the southern part of the development, the ability to subdivide in the future and you can't do, you can't have more than 4 lots off of a private drive so that's one of the big issues. And then the second is the safety concern. Rather have traffic coming off of a 31 foot improved public street versus a 20 foot private drive, so we tried to come up with some different options on that but it all came back to Option E and I think in the end that is the best thing for this area. So then starting out early on, in April and June I called all the adjacent property owners and just let them know that I was going to be the property owner 35 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 that' s going to move forward and work with the Kerber' s on development of this site, and left my name and number and if they had any questions or comments, to please feel free to call me. Then it moved onto July and I started to show some of the plans that we've come up with and I can start out with the first plan here. And this plan is the July 3rd plan. It shows right here. We're connecting with the existing cul-de-sac that was platted back in '96, and the 50 foot right-of-way and just a little portion of the property, there's a right-of-way and just a very, very small portion would be on Martinka's property. Sacchet: If I could ask you to go relatively quickly through the history, because we have another applicant and there are people here that would like to address that so, if you could mainly focus on the actual current proposal, I would appreciate that very much. Rich Ragatz: Oh, and not go into the history. Sacchet: Well you can touch on it but what I'm asking you is if you could just really summarize the history part please. Rich Ragatz: Okay. Okay, that's fine. Sorry about that. We went through several different alternatives and I guess we went through the alternatives because we were trying to be, work with everybody so this would be a win/win situation for everybody but based on the '95-96 Option #E that was adopted by planning and council, the only way to move forward and develop this is to get the Martinka property to work with us and, met with him several times. We had a neighborhood meeting and showed him plans and tried to work with him and in the end I really never understood what he wanted, and I asked him several times and he never came up with anything and you know I have some time constraints. I'm working with the Kerber's, contractual obligations and we wanted to move forward with what we thought was the best plan and let planning and City Council take a look at it. So we went through a couple different renditions and in the end we think this proposal here that has the temporary cul-de-sac and doesn't impact anything in the easement is the way to go and I'm willing and would love to work with everybody to get this thing finally connected to the easement that was done in '96. So I guess I was going to touch on some other things but I think I'll just get to the meat of the. Sacchet: If you would, I think that would be appreciated. Rich Ragatz: Alright. All the lots in the development are 15,000 square foot minimum lots. They all have at least 90 foot frontage and 134 feet deep or more. The average about 18,000 square feet. We're only asking for one variance for a private drive and that's mainly to save the mature trees. There's two oak grove, burl oaks on the site and several other mature trees on the western property boundary and if we were to put a cul-de-sac in that way, it would really destroy the trees and ruin the natural features of the site. So secondly, also looking at mitigating the wetland which is 5,963 square feet because it's a type I wetland. It's basically a muddy hole with reed canary grass and if we were to put homes in there, the people that live in the homes would probably mow that. Fertilize it. It wouldn't act or look like a wetland so it's probably best to move it off the site. So what I'm looking to do also is custom grade the site and ! wanted to clarify that if we were to custom grade I think we could do a little more in terms of tree preservation for this. And we're looking to build the road as close to the easement as possible and eventually extend it if we could. And this would be the first addition and as a part of it, we'd be deeding Outlots A and B and the future road and right-of-way for the second addition, and I'd be delighted to move forward with the entire thing as soon as everybody else is willing to move forward on it too, and I thank you for your time and look forward to your feedback. 36 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Thank you very much. Question from the applicant. Commissioners. No questions from the applicant? One quick question. You mentioned the custom grade, is that part of the current application in front of us or is that a change to the current? The way you were talking. AI-Jaff: It is not. Right now it's mass graded. Sacchet: Okay. So you're proposing that rather than mass grading you'd rather do custom grading? Rich Ragatz: Yeah, custom grade it and then work with the city if we can save more trees then it's better for everybody. Sacchet: And apparently there was not a disagreement but a difference in counting of the trees, the canopy cover. Has that been resolved between staff and the applicant and you? Rich Ragatz: Yes it has. Sacchet: It has, okay. So you're basically concurring with the numbers that staff put into the staff report at this time? Rich Ragatz: I think, generally we are. Yeah. Sacchet: Well, okay. Well that's good enough for me. Okay, thank you very much. Slagle: Chair, I do have a couple. Sacchet: Commissioner Slagle go ahead. Slagle: If I may. Can I ask, you made reference on a couple times in your presentation of the Martinka's, if that's how you pronounce it. That you just couldn't work it out. Is there a simple explanation as to what you needed from them? Rich Ragatz: Well according to the '95-96 resolution that was adopted, the only way to connect to the cul-de-sac is to have some right-of-way and a portion of the road, a very minor portion on his property and since his property's affected by the development, he'd have to sign the development application. Slagle: So was that a small parcel of land, safe to say? Rich Ragatz: Yes. Sacchet: It's the little comer. Slagle: With the cul-de-sac. Sacchet: That little corner there, yeah. Slagle: Okay. And then the last question, pertaining to maybe the property you used to own, if I understand it. What I'll call the, how do you pronounce his name? Rich Ragatz: Egyhazi. 37 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Slagle: Yes. Under proposal E, we're working with, are they connecting, is their driveway on Powers, is that what it's going to be? Al-Jaff: There's an existing private street. Slagle: Correct. I just want to make sure I'm not getting confused here Sharmeen. That that is not going to be closed. Okay, but you made the comment future development, they will close that and they will have to go through the cul-de-sac. A1-Jaff: Correct. Slagle: ...from some folks that that maybe wasn't what was thought, so I want to make clear that they're going to go around their house, even though their house faces Powers. They're going to drive around the back end of their house. Saam: The whole point Commissioner Slagle with that one is to close that access to Powers. Slagle: I understand but ! just want to make sure that that property owner's fully. Saam: And I wasn't around when that was adopted, Sharmeen was, but from everything I've read and from what Sharmeen's brought me up to speed on that, that's been the intention all along. Slagle: You believe that that property owner knows that that will. Rich Ragatz: They're well aware of that, yeah. Sacchet: Thanks Rich. Bruce. Feik: One quick thing. In going forward the Martinka's will access Powers how? Rich Ragatz: Well they'll currently have the existing access. Feik: They have a current gravel road I believe. Rich Ragatz: Gravel road that goes through. Feik: And that will continue? Rich Ragatz: Well it will continue or they can use the new improved street and just have a gravel road from there. Feik: Okay, thank you. Al-Jarl: Our preference is to limit the number of access points onto Powers Boulevard. Sacchet: Could we ask, could the city ask them to use that temporary cul-de-sac? Saam: Sure, I guess we could but they have an existing easement off what will be Rich's... Sacchet: Whether it makes sense or not, yeah. 38 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Saam: Yeah, I mean if they have rights to do it, then. But see with development our plan was to close that. Sacchet: I don't know whether the Martinka's are here tonight. Probably if they are I would like them to speak for themselves. We got the letter from them that sounds much more reconciliatory than what the staff report reflects so if they're here, I hope they talk. Rich Ragatz: Yeah I just want to add one thing. I mean part of the reason we're doing this temporary cul-de-sac is there is an easement for access and utilities and I was willing to bring the public street and have it connect to the Christensen and Martinka property, which would provide a public street which is over and above the current requirements of the easement, and also bring the utilities and stub them off at the property. But he thought, and he never said that he'd be in that instance willing to relinquish his rights in the easement so it didn't make sense for me to move forward if there's that possibility. It's too risky. Sacchet: So from your vantage point there has been sufficient discussion between you two? Rich Ragatz: Yeah. Sacchet: Alright. Rich Ragatz: Yeah, and I just wanted to clarify two things. In the preliminary plat that Sharmeen brought up. Number 13. Perry and I have talked to Matt about this and you had mentioned the last time that we talked that we could maybe, you were open to suggestions on other ways to maybe go about this if they made sense. Saam: Yep. Rich Ragatz: So okay, just want that. And then on page 17 of the same thing, number 30. No, 31 I'm sorry. Also wanted to add, it says a financial security must be supplied to the city. I wanted to add in there, for developer's pro rata share of cost. Feik: Isn't there typically a multiple on that? Saam: What do you mean a multiple? Feik: If you're doing a bond or if you're doing a letter of credit it would be. Sacchet: 1.2 or something like that. Saam: Oh, 110 percent. Yeah. Yeah. Sacchet: Okay, so it'd be 110 percent of the pro rata share. Saam: I think what he's trying to address is he just wants to pay his own fair share and he would just like that clarified in there. We're fine with that. Rich Ragatz: And that's, oh go ahead. 39 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Slagle: Point of clarification with Matt. On that 13 that we just talked about, you said you're open to suggestions. I'm assuming, and we just talked about the closest one. Saam: Yeah, how that came about, you can see they don't propose that on their plan. They kind of propose just out letting it into the neighboring property. Lori, the Water Resource Coordinator and myself sat down and came up with this proposal and I just communicated that to Rich's engineer, that this is what we've come up with. You know you're welcome to look at it but what you've proposed right now really doesn't work for us. So we're open to other suggestions but this is what we've come up with right now. So barring any other ones, I guess we'd like to go with this. Sacchet: So you don't see a really an alternative at this point but you're willing to entertain if an alternative is presented to you, but the original proposal, to just let it out on the neighbors property is not acceptable. Saam: Correct. Sacchet: Okay. So would a work with staff be sufficient then at that condition? Saam: Sure, work with staff on finding a resolution to the pond outlet or something like that. Slagle: I can see one that's more generic... Sacchet: Did you want to address another one? Rich Ragatz: No, those were the ones I wanted to address. Sacchet: Thank you very much. With that, this is a public hearing. If anybody wants to come forward to address the Planning Commission on this item, please come forward now. State your name and address for the record and we listen to what you have to say. Anybody takers with this? This is your chance. Jon Steckman: Good evening. I'm Jon Steckman. I live on the property west at 1215 Lake Lucy. Sacchet: Would you want to point out which one it is, just for our orientation. Okay, excellent. Some beautiful trees there. Jon Steckman: Pardon me? Sacchet: Beautiful trees on your property. Jon Steckman: Most of them are on the Kerber property, but a few. The only question I have I guess, and that's more of a question. A couple questions. With the pond, I guess do we believe, and I did talk to Rich a number of times on the phone and worked out very well. But I guess with the pond, and the question maybe is to you, or over there, do we think that there will be water in that pond? I know I talked to, about that just in general. It's quite a huge pond that borders my property and just was interested in the possible depth of that pond. Where we thought that would be. Sacchet: Can you answer that Matt please? 40 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Saam: Sure. Yes, the pond is intended to hold water. The plan shows a normal water level which is in generic terms where the water will usually be at of 995. The bottom of the pond is 990, so it'd be about 5 feet deep at it's deepest point. Jon Steckman: Yeah, and I was just wondering about, sometimes you see the ponds around and they're quite reedy and mossy so what we have, which is going to be to a couple people's back yards, I was just interested if that could flow into that potential, proposed storm sewer, or something related to that. So, and then I just wanted the clarification on that point number 13, since I was the property currently where that might out flow or where it was originally proposed but, and then if that storm sewer goes through, that would be in the easement, we could lose some trees related to that on my property so I was just concerned and wanted staff to know that I guess. Saam: Okay. I'll just mention, ifI can add to his. Sacchet: Go ahead. Saam: That the easement would be on the Kerber property. The pipe would be on the Kerber property. So our intention would be to limit the destruction I'll call it to things on your property. And I'll add just one more thing. The way they have this pond set up, in staffs view would be advantageous to your property if and when at some time you would develop. You would also have back yards which go toward the pond. The pond would be all set up for his drainage, that sort of thing so. Sacchet: So, but what you're saying Matt is that once your property develops, his development, that private street could actually use that as storm water pond as well? Is that what you're saying? Saam: Yes. So...basically right here so you can see what I'm saying. His property would be set up just like this one with a walkout's, whatever, looking at the pond to take care of the storm runoff. So I just want to point that out, It's good for future development also. Sacchet: For runoff, not necessarily for storm water from the other private street though. Saam: Well unless they put a catch basin in and piped it there. Sacchet: Okay. Alright. Jon Steckman: Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Anybody else like to address this item. This is your chance. Please come forward. Debbie Lloyd: Hi, Debbie Lloyd, 7302 Laredo Drive. I'll try to keep it short but I've seen some things in the staff report that I'm questioning and I just caught the stuff tonight so please bear with me. First question is, even though council approved this back in 1995 for E as the option, because it was not developed, is not required, is that correct or not? Sacchet: It's my understanding that the council decision was for Option E and that we're building on top of that. Are you saying are we locked into it? 41 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Debbie Lloyd: But because it wasn't, because it did not move ahead. Sacchet: Well some of it did. Like the cul-de-sac on the south is dedicated. Debbie Lloyd: So we are locked into Option E? Sacchet: Pretty much. A1-Jaff: I'm sure there are other alternatives. However, based upon the cul-de-sac, the right-of- way for the cul-de-sac and the alignment that we have, yes. You can say that. Debbie Lloyd: Okay. I think the number of, I'm going to change my focus a little bit here. I think the number of accesses is not a positive thing. Two private streets is not a positive thing. Private streets, the maintenance of those streets is left up to the owner of the property. I believe a public street should serve this area. Not be served by two private streets and one public street. In terms of, let's see. On the preliminary plat, page 6. Average lot size. I had a question mark on, it's shown as 21,323 square feet. Actually the developer said the average is about 18,000 square feet in his statement so staff report is not correct there. Sacchet: Sharmeen, I think that number comes from your compliance table doesn't it? Al-Jaff: Correct. Sacchet: And it looks to me like you added up the lots and then divided them by the number. So I didn't check the math but. Debbie Lloyd: What is Lot 1, Block 2 with 41,336 feet? Sacchet: That's the lot on the southeast comer, right? Debbie Lloyd: This is really poor, can you read it here? Rich Ragatz: I'm talking about the...but if you use all 7 lots, it does average to 22. Sacchet: That makes sense, okay. That resolves that question. Thank you for clarifying that. What else did you find Debbie? Debbie Lloyd: On page 9 under streets, the last point. The last line. The additional right-of-way needs to be platted. So if it isn't platted it affects the buildable area I believe. And I don't know if that's part of the calculation. Just a notation. Sacchet: Yes, it seems like that's not been worked out at this point Matt, is that accurate? Saam: Yes, however the lots will stay the same. Other than Lot 1, Block 2 would decrease by that 7 feet because we're essentially pushing everything south so the big one will lose a couple hundred square feet or whatever it is. A1-Jaff: They're platting the entire subdivision now. Sacchet: Okay, and as you pointed out you don't have an issue with the street being offset by a couple feet. 42 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Saam: No. Shenandoah is a sub-standard street so possibly in the future if that would get upgraded, we could...on center. Sacchet: Okay, thank you. Debbie Lloyd: Okay, one other thing I wanted to point out about the private streets for Lots 1 through 4. Because of having private streets there, actually there's a gain to the property owner of 10 feet, because now you're requiring 30 feet for a private street. Sacchet: Can you repeat that? I'm not sure I got that. Debbie Lloyd: You're requiring 30 feet here of width. For a public street there would be a requirement of 50. Sacchet: Correct. That's one of the advantages of the private street. Debbie Lloyd: Right, so there's almost a full lot gained by putting in private streets. The calculation is around 10,000, if ! calculated correctly, about 10,000 square feet. Sacchet: So the point being? That they would lose a lot if it were a public street? Debbie Lloyd: Correct. Sacchet: Did you also take into consideration that there are two private streets if they would go down the public street in the middle where all the big trees are, that actually the easement for the public street would be shared between the easterly and westerly lots. Is that accurate Matt? A1-Jaff: Yeah. Yes it is. Sacchet: Okay. Because I would think if you take that in consideration, then I'm not sure whether your point would really. Debbie Lloyd: Well there is a gain on each lot when you put in a private street. It's just a point. Sacchet: ...where would you go with that? Debbie Lloyd: It's just a point that you're gaining a buildable lot and granted it's a development that' s been passed already but I do want to make that point because of the private street issue. On page 17, point 25. This does not mention that the driveway must be 20 feet wide. It says it's required for the private drive. That word should be private street so there's no confusion after all the code changes we went through. Sacchet: Okay, can you say this again so we're all on the same page? You're looking at number 25 on page 17 and what would you change? Debbie Lloyd: Point number 25. The driveway should be paved to 20 foot width. Saam: If I can add something to that, and the only reason we didn't add that is because they're already proposing it at 20 feet. 43 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: So it's already there. Saam: It's already shown on the plan as 20 feet, yeah. Debbie Lloyd: But I would like to change the word from private drive to private street. Sacchet: Is that consistent with our language? A1-Jaff: Yeah. Sacchet: Okay, good point Debbie. Thank you. Debbie Lloyd: And apart from that, the only other point is meeting the variance requirements for private street, but again if this has been approved, I don't know if it's a moot point or not. But the variance study here did not go over point by point, let's see. Page 14. Variances. You have point 1 through 4 but you have a general finding. In the finding it is possible to serve this site through a public street so you need to work through all those variances I believe in order to sufficiently meet the variance. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you Debbie. Am I correct by assuming that those considerations were made when this originally was chosen as Option E? Al-Jaff: Now please remember that back then it was not a variance. Sacchet: It was different, okay. Al-Jaff: We were operating under a different set of rules. Sacchet: Alright. This is a public hearing. Anybody else would like to come forward, this is your chance. State your name and address for the record please. Kevin Grafft: My name is Kevin Grafft. I live at 6726 Powers. Sacchet: Is that on the plat there? Kevin Grafft: Property 13. Sacchet: Property 13, thank you very much. Kevin Grafft: Just a couple quick and easy questions. Main question is probably, I'm not sure who to address this to. What was the main reason for closing down the private drive to homes 11, 12 and 137 Sacchet: Matt, do you want to address that please. Saam: Yes. One to limit direct accesses onto Powers Boulevard, a collector. High traveled street, and two, was approved that way under the Golden Glow development, which is that development to the south. The development contract for that site says that when this future cul- de-sac public street is put in, that private street will go away. Kevin Grafft: So once this addition's put on, that will close offthe 3 homes down there? 44 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Saam: Yes. Kevin Grafft: Because the one lady will still have, the old Ravis property will still have her access there? Saam: I'm not sure which one the old Ravis' is. Kevin Grafft: Number 18 there. Sacchet: Why don't you point it out on the plat there. Kevin Grafft: Right down here. Ravis' is right there. So you're going to shut these 3 homes and route them... Saam: Yeah, good point. That would come out here to the cul-de-sac. Kevin Graft: Well then who' s going to be responsible for maintenance of that road? Saam: When this gets built it will be a city street so we'll plow and maintain it and everything. This will remain a private street as it is now. Kevin Grafft: Okay. Then just one last quick question. This is kind of regards to Mr., is it Ragatz? Ragatz. As far as Mr. Bob Martinka's inability to be accessible. I have a letter here from his attorney that's talking to you saying that he is willing to talk. Sacchet: Yeah, I believe we have a copy of that letter as well. It's the letter from September 15th? Kevin Graft: I want to say it's July. Feik: He's got a letter from an attorney. This is from Martinka themselves. Sacchet: Oh, this is from Martinka's themselves, okay. Kevin Grafft: July 25th. So I was kind of confused by that. Feik: In reference in paragraph A of the Martinka letter. Reference to paragraph A. Sacchet: Alright. Kevin Grafft: Because Bob's been kind of the spearhead in our area, kind of the bring us abreast and work hard as far as coming up with a solution for everybody so. Sacchet: So your point being that some additional... Kevin Graft: It's kind of confusing why he's been contradicting this all night. Sacchet: Yeah, but the point you're making is that it would be good to have some additional discussion there? Is that basically what you're saying? 45 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Kevin Grafft: Correct. Sacchet: I mean I don't want to put mouth in you, words in your mouth but. Kevin Grafft: I mean it's been totally opposite so I'm kind of confused by that I guess. Sacchet: Yeah, July 25th. That's the letter that was actually in our staff report. Feik: Oh yes in the back. Sacchet: That's the one you're referring to, right? Kevin Grafft: Correct. Sacchet: Okay. Kevin Grafft: That's all I have. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Anybody else want to address this item? This is your chance. It's getting late so I'm going to close it if nobody else stands up. Nobody else stand up? Are you sure Debbie. Debbie Lloyd: I'm really sorry because I know we're trying to keep these as short as possible. I just guess I'm like really confused. So if this was already approved, the subdivision was approved. Sacchet: That's my understanding. Debbie Lloyd: The purpose of this meeting then is to allow the variance? Sacchet: We're looking at the plat, we're looking at the variance and the plat. Two things. Plat and variance. Debbie Lloyd: But the plat was already approved. Feik: Conceptual. Al-Jaff: The Ravis plat. Golden Glow was approved. Sacchet: The Golden Glow plat. Al-Jaff: Which resulted in certain alignments, dedications put in place. Slagle: If I may. Sacchet: Go ahead Rich. Slagle: Mr. Chair, and I want to get back to my thing from the beginning of this presentation, and I appreciate you trying to keep us on track, but I still have a question and that's why I was trying to get more history of this options because is this indeed E, call it E, the only framework that we're allowed to work with, because I'll give you an example. We had the development on 46 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Powers, and I won't go into the details, that we called premature and I'm questioning why this wouldn't be somewhat premature as well. Sacchet: Can you say why? Slagle: I'm not sure why but I'm just asking. What I'm saying is, we had a developer, or applicant who wanted to develop their land and we as a commission voted that it was premature. And what I'm saying is we're sort of being instructed, and I don't want to put words in the staff's mouth but this was already approved by City Council. You have to work under this guideline. And I have yet to see anything from the meeting of '95 that showed that, so I'm taking you guys on your word that that's our framework. Sacchet: Well let me clarify that. I mean obviously the issue in front of us is not which one of those 4 or 5 options is appropriate. Slagle: I understand. Sacchet: The issue in front of us is, the option that was chosen by City Council and ! assume the Planning Commission at the time, on that basis here's a plat. Does this plat work? Does this plat meet the regulations and ordinances of zoning. That's the question I see in front of us. Al-Jaff: And the Ravis plat was approved based upon Option E. Feik: Right, but this plat was not filed. This was a conceptual plat. It's just conceptual... It was not a filed plat. It wasn't a done deal. Slagle: Correct and that's what I'm trying...is we have the ability Mr. Chair I think, to look at this proposal and if you will question certain things and have the ability to do that without thinking that a previous City Council approved this. Sacchet: Okay, question to staff. Is that accurate? Do we have within our reach to go back and evaluate these options at this stage of the game? Slagle: Not what I'm asking. Sacchet: That's what I'm asking. I know that's not what you're asking but we might as well go all the way here. Saam: I'll give my opinion and I think what we, because this is what Rich talked about. Rich Ragatz the developer brought that up right from the beginning and what we've always said is, the council has the ability to change and say you know that council back in '95 didn't know what they were doing and just throw that out the window. I guess in my opinion we really don't. We have a development contract in place. We have platted right-of-way that we want to hook up, so we've already looked at the whole area. Gone through all the options. I think the plan's in place. We build off of that. Can we tweak this? Sure. Sacchet: I mean but basically staffs position is we don't want to reinvent the wheel in this particular case. A1-Jaff: Well we spent a good 6 months on the Ravis plat. Going through all of those options and 6 months might be an exaggeration. But it was quite. 47 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Well I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision just by judging what we're going through here tonight with this. AI-Jaff: It wasn't...and our initial recommendation to the City Council was that this was a premature development for the Ravis. We said until Kerber is ready to develop, Ravis should not move forward, but. Slagle: And I guess what I'm, if I may, what I am suggesting is that with the absence of a couple of parties of this, who have properties in this already, let's just say design proposal. That's maybe the wrong word, I am wondering why we can't help that process along to reach an agreement to all parties to then have a solution that works for everybody versus leaving a couple folks out. That's really what I'm getting at. A1-Jaff: And in all honesty, if you look at this proposal, and we've spoken to Mr. Ragatz about this, one of the reasons he's calling it Phase I, Phase II is because with Phase I he's able to develop the entire property located to the northwest and then in the future when the remaining parties are all on the same page, they would be able to continue this cul-de-sac. Sacchet: Yes. Actually we're still having an open public hearing. Feik: I think I'm understanding you. Basically, I'm going to paraphrase what I heard and you tell me if I'm wrong. We're doing Phase I until they can secure that triangular piece of dirt to access the Golden Glow Court. A1-Jaff: And Mr. Feik: That's the only thing that's holding this thing up as a two phase is to get that triangular piece of dirt. AI-Jaff: Correct, and Mr. Ragatz needs to work with Mr. Martinka to vacate, or. Sacchet: To come to an agreement. Simple. A1-Jaff: Come to an agreement. Sacchet: So we still have an open public hearing here. We have not heard from the Martinka's so I assume they're not here. Here's another person though who'd like to address us. Please come forward. Bob Martinka: Good evening and thank you. As I said in the opening statement of my memo to yOU. Sacchet: Name and address please. Bob Martinka: Oh I'm sorry. Bob Martinka... Sacchet: You are here. Welcome then. Bob Martinka: As I said in the opening statement in my memo I sincerely wish both the developer, Mr. Ragatz and the seller, Mr. and Mrs. Kerber you know every success in this 48 Planning Commission Meeting- September 16, 2003 regardless of what the configuration is. Personally we got our little place back there in the woods and our lives will continue and we've got a large family and it fits us pretty well but, I kind of promised a couple folks that I would not be standing up here this evening and I'm here for one reason only, and that is to you know this is all on the record and I want it to be accurate. There's a couple of things that were said here tonight and I'm not suggesting that they were said you know with any intention to have it appear other than it really is. However, Mr. Ragatz said I have conducted neighborhood meetings. Mr. Grafft is here from the neighborhood. Mr. Smith is here from the neighborhood. Mr. Cuccia is here from the neighborhood. Bob Christensen is here from the neighborhood. There was never a neighborhood meeting until one evening late in the process I personally called Rich to join an informal group for coffee out in front of Mike's house and we chatted about a few things. The subject of easement I invite members of the commission to very thoughtfully read my memo. I made a number of overtures to bring the subject of easements on the table. Never, ever once did the developer approach me on the subject of easement. Never did we turn down or reject consideration of setting aside of the easement, and indeed I initiated procedures with my lien holder in case I was approached, which I never was approached. Ever on that subject. That needs to be set clear for the record because the Martinka residence, property is being, appearing to be used as a, you know as a reason why the development is being done in two stages. And may I just encourage you to look more carefully at what appears to be that little corner of property that has to be crossed. It's a 25 foot line and I invited staff to come out and look and take a walk. I also, at Sharmeen's recommendation, very well advised recommendation, you know mentioned to the developer out in the field, have an engineer's chalk line drawn so I could better see and understand what we're really talking about. Because what we were talking about was the proposal never discussed in advance. I discovered, you know I learned about it for the first time when I picked a copy up from Sharmeen's office, who by the way has been really very helpful and responsive and cooperative. That proposal put the right-of-way within 2 to 4 inches of the string of some of the oldest, tallest evergreens in Carver County, and threatened their survival. I went in to see a staff member in the planning council and he said well, yeah. Those trees would probably have to go. Well, they define the whole character of that property. Never discussed in advance so you know I think some of those things, had there been a little planning in advance, as I suggested in the last paragraph of that memo, and encourage you to look at it, who knows. We might have a win/win situation that Rich referred to there. Well, I don't want to belabor that point just that ! think the record needs to be corrected, particularly on those points. I made perhaps a half a dozen initiatives on the subject of easement and never got a response. Sacchet: Appreciate your. Bob Martinka: The subject's never been brought up. Sacchet: Appreciate your sharing that with us. If I may ask you a question or two. Bob Martinka: You bet, Sacchet: I think you are accurate in that that road alignment would have significant impact onto the trees to your east. If by looking at the plat I think it's very evident that that roadway, going to the cul-de-sac of Golden Acres, Golden Glow, or what' s it called? Al-Jaff: Golden Glow. Sacchet: Golden Glow Acres. Would have a significant impact on the trees. Not on your property but just across your property line to your east. And you expressed that would have a 49 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 significant impact on the character of your residence. Now from that I would be inclined to conclude that you do have a resistance for that roadway to go in, which I fully understand. Bob Martinka: I have resistance to making decisions and taking action without everybody with the best interest sitting down at a table and some advance information and the guidance and gradually moving towards a best mutual outcome that we can have and that opportunity has never been provided. Sacchet: Then I have another question of that. Were you aware of that road being planned when you acquired that property? Bob Martinka: No sir. Sacchet: Okay. Well that's part of the problem. Okay. Bob Martinka: You know that property is going to be developed at some point in time. They just ain't making land no more, especially in Carver County, and we're open and reasonably easy and trying to be okay folks to work with. That really has not been the process that's been used. The process that's been used you know, here's a plan. That's what we're going ahead with, or respond to it and I think if everyone were involved at the earlier stages of the process, everybody had a chance to listen, to express their thoughts, their concerns, their recommendations. Sacchet: Then part of what we're struggling with here tonight is that a lot of this planning took place what, 8 years ago. And most of the people here, actually almost all of us were not here. Bob Martinka: She gave you a short course in the background, yeah. Sacchet: Well I appreciate your coming to speak up. Thank you very much. Feik: Mr. Martinka, one question please. As a stakeholder, what would you have us do? Bob Martinka: I would have you structure a new look with this, as almost as though we were starting from the beginning because I think there are some options out there. You know Phase I, Phase II with Martinka's easement apparently being the, so. Sacchet: Sharmeen points out that you did submit a proposal from what you would encourage? Do you want to zoom in on that Nann? Yeah. A1-Jaff: This is the Martinka property. And the Christensen's are right here. What this calls for is a cul-de-sac that terminates in front of the Christensen property. A foot path, oh this is a private street. A foot path and then where the cul-de-sac bubble sits would be turned into a mini park area for the neighborhood. Sacchet: And the access of those properties to the south would stay the way it is? Al-Jaff: Correct, so they would not be able to further subdivide. Sacchet: Okay. Thank you for pointing that out Sharmeen. A1-Jaff: Sure. 50 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Bob Martinka: There's been an expression of non-interest by those two parties in developing their properties now. Obviously times change. Houses sell, etc but. Sacchet: Alright. Thank you very much. Appreciate your comments. Thank you for stepping up, even though you apparently promised some people you wouldn't. We definitely wanted to hear from you. With that, unless somebody else wants to address the commission, yes. There is somebody else. Please come forward. State your name and address for the record and let us know what you have to say. Larry Kerber: Larry Kerber, 6700, well I own the property at 6700. I live at 6420 Powers, and the only comment I have is, I'd like to, I think I disagree with Mr. Martinka. He was well aware of this project and proposed turn around, everything when he bought the property. The person he bought it from Bob Peterson and I discussed it even when Martinka bought and I said, does he know. And Bob says oh yeah, I showed him Option E. Showed him everything. So maybe he just forgot or something. Sacchet: Based on information you have, let's not go there. I mean this is, but I appreciate yes. You made your statement, I appreciate that but I don't think we want to discuss that. That's not our scope here. Obviously we have some disconnects here and I wish people could work those out, but that's not our task here at Planning Commission. A1-Jaff: And if the Planning Commission would focus on the proposal that is before you today. Sacchet: Yeah and basically, anybody else want to address the Planning Commission here? This is still open public hearing. Last chance. I'm closing the public hearing. Bring it back to commissioners. And to emphasize Sharmeen's point, our task here is this proposal that's in front of us. Our task is to look at this. Does this meet the city regulations, ordinance, zoning and make a finding on that. Whether we agree with the staff. Whether it needs to be tweaked or where we go with this. That's basically the task that's in front of us as a Planning Commission. With that I would want some comments, and the group is pointing to you Rich. Fei k: I'm just pointing at that end. Slagle: You know I'm not exactly sure what to say on this one to be frank with you. Actually I don't have anything to say right now. Sacchet: Okay, that's good enough. Anything more from you Kurt? Papke: It's clear there's been some breakdown in communications here, but I think the plan in front of us involves 7 lots and were there to be other alterations here, you know it doesn't sound like they would affect the 7 lots in question here. I think the developer should be given the right to proceed with what's on the table right at this time and have all these other considerations taken into account as we move forward with the rest of the development. Sacchet: Thanks Kurt. Bethany, want to give it a stab? Tjornhom: You know I just agree with what happened at the other end of the table. I guess I agree with everything they said and I approve, or I think it is a good lot development and good luck. Sacchet: Okay, thanks Bethany. 51 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Feik: I' m in a quandary. I would be not nearly as resonant as I am if the easement that access the Martinka property out to Powers, that piece would go away and we would eliminate one more access onto Powers on a temporary basis. That would make me very comfortable with what's in front of us. ! guess my question to you Matt is, we've got the proposed cul-de-sac which dead ends you know right off of the Powers coming in 100 feet or whatever it is, and then just to the south of that another, help me out, 30, 50, 60, 75 feet. Saam: That's about right. Feik: Is the gravel road to the Martinka, if I'm pronouncing it properly I hope, and then we go another 200-300 feet and we've got the private road that was ultimately to be abandoned if this could go in. I can live with the private road to the south. I would have liked to have seen some accommodations by the developer here to try to really encourage this abandonment of that one gravel road just south of the new road. Saam: Could I add two points? Feik: Please. Saam: To that for you Commissioner Feik. First of all staff is fully in support of getting rid of that gravel drive. Putting in the entire public street cul-de-sac. Having everybody come off that. We told Rich that. In fact his previously submitted plan showed that. However in discussions with him, that he told us, he wasn't able to, as you know, come to an agreement with Martinka and I think Christensen also has a stake in that easement. Without getting rid of the easement, which Martinka and Christensen have to sign off on, ! don't think we can require that. We can't shut them off. Feik: I understand but now we've got a cul-de-sac that comes in 100 feet or so and then to the southwest comer of that cul-de-sac we've got a private road, which is going to skirt that cul-de- sac by about 4 feet. Sacchet: Or less. Feik: Or less. And then ultimately wander back out to Powers. Sacchet: It doesn't make sense. Feik: It doesn't make sense at all. Saam: I agree. If the residents would be willing to get rid of just even that far east portion and come off the cul-de-sac we would be in favor of that. The city. Al-Jaff: Mr. Ragatz has no control over this. Feik: I understand that. Sacchet: Yeah because Mr. Martinka is in his rights with having this easement. Anything else Bruce? Feik: No. 52 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Alright, my turn. This is sticky, judging by how long it takes. I'm going to get real bad marks from the City Council by having such a late meeting again. Feik: We're not done. Sacchet: I know. Basically I agree with everything that's been said. I think the applicant is in his full rights to develop this. It's a proposal that's based on previous decision of City Council in terms of the private road. The wetland alteration is reasonable. Do I like it? Well, yeah I'm a tree guy and I'd like to see a little more consideration for trees, but that's not a reason to hold this up. But I do agree with Commissioner Feik. I think to have an additional access to Powers within 80 feet or less from another one existing is not acceptable and I think this would be reason to table it and ask the parties to discuss this. For the Martinka party, there are really 3 issues. One is the easement from the potential temporary cul-de-sac out to Powers. And I don't know whether legally we have a sound foundation to turn it down on that basis, but I certainly think we have a solid foundation to table this on this basis and asking the parties to work on this. Now the other two aspects that affect the Martinka property. One is that piece of property that would have to be taken for that roadway alignment, which I don't think is that big an issue. I think for the Martinka property the real issue is the road going in there and all these trees coming out, but that's a separate issue from the access onto Powers. ! think it's reasonable to table it on that basis and ask that to be looked at and worked on and come back to us and we will take it from there, so that's where I'm at. Feik: I have one more quick question before we go any further. Sacchet: Go ahead. Feik: Matt, the lot block, Lot 2, Block 1 existing house, the large lot, how does that structure and how do they access when this is done to Powers? Saam: I believe they go through that gravel drive also, don't they? Rich Ragatz: Yes, it'd be the gravel drive. Saam: Yes, they also access that way. Sacchet: Through the same access as the Martinka. Saam: Yes. Sacchet: So that's a shared easement there, okay. Well yeah, good question Bruce. Any other aspects, otherwise I'd like to have a motion. Anybody dare to make a motion on this one? Bob Martinka: If you deny me I'll respect your decision but I would ask for 30 seconds. Sacchet: Okay, please come forward. We're late either way. 30 seconds go fast though. Bob Martinka: When I bought that property I was never aware of a development that would encroach on our property, nor that would jeopardize these massive evergreen trees. Of course I was aware of a cul-de-sac that borders our property and that a road someday would run through 53 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 there but I really, I need Larry to understand that and I need you to understand it because my veracity is kind on line. Sacchet: Appreciate, thank you. And it only took 30 seconds. I appreciate that particularly. Are we ready for a motion? Feik: I'll move we table. Sacchet: Do we have a second? Slagle: I'll second. Feik moved, Slagle seconded that the Planning Commission table the Preliminary Plat request for Burlwood Addition at Lake Lucy Road and Powers Boulevard. All voted in favor, except Papke who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. Sacchet: So we have 4 to 1. Anything you want to add? You made your position pretty clear. Papke: I think I made my comments pretty clear. Sacchet: Okay. So we see you guys in a couple weeks. 3 or more. And I think we had enough discussion on it that we know why we tabled this. I'm not going to go back into this further, and I would like to move onto our last item on the agenda. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR A LAND USE AMENDMENT FROM RESIDENTIAL LOW DENSITY TO COMMERCIAL ON 8 ACRES AND CONCEPTUAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD) REVIEW FOR A MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT INCLUDING A FAMILY ACTIVITY CENTER AND TOWNHOMES ON 14 ACRES ZONED AGRICULTURAL ESTATE DISTRICT (A2), LOCATED AT THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF TH 5 AND GALPIN BOULEVARD, JOHN PRYZMUS, SWINGS. Public Present: Name Address Marlene Bentz Lois Degler 7300 Galpin Boulevard 9111 Audubon Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Questions from staff. Feik: Sure, I'll start. Bob, this was guided as residential. The piece that's on the east of Galpin that now is occupied by the Kwik Trip, how was that guided? Generous: It was guided for commercial, medium density residential or and parks and open space. 54 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Feik: Okay. How did, and were you part of the study that ultimately came up with the guiding of this. How were these two parcels differentiated from each other, particularly in light of the southern route for West 78th Street? Generous: I wasn't a participant in it but the city did not want to create commercial uses at every intersection, at every corner of every intersection and they decided that as you go west from Galpin you were going into a residential area. Feik: But we've got residential north of the Kwik Trip though as well, so the conditions are virtually identical, except this wasn't built. Generous: We had medium density to the north of the Kwik Trip. Walnut Grove, the townhouse project. Sacchet: That's medium density, yeah. Feik: And the Kwik Trip wasn't even buildable until the soil corrections were done with the extra materials from Highway 5, is that correct? The site was not buildable. Saam: They took out an interim use permit, a grading permit for like 50,000 cubic yards to be filled on that property. Feik: Right, right. Because that was significantly lower. I mean it wouldn't even have been able to be developed as commercial if left as the way it was. Saam: Probably not without the fill, no. Sacchet: Go ahead Bruce. Any other questions? Feik: Is there any, I guess is there any compelling reason, I guess I'm having a hard time. What is the compelling reason not to rezone this? Generous: That's a legislative. It's a policy decision on the city's part. Feik: Okay, thank you. Sacchet: Bethany. Tjornhom: Not right now. Sacchet: Not right now. Kurt. Papke: What is the access to this site from the school? One can envision you know a business of this nature, I mean this isn't a retail facility. This is something that's obviously catering to children so if I was a student at Bluff Creek Elementary, how would I access this site? Generous: You could cross under Highway 5 and under West 78~ Street with the pedestrian underpass and then come up on the north side of West 78th Street and take that west across Galpin and then come across the street again, or you could cross at grade on Galpin. 55 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Papke: So it would be reasonable to assume that there would be some amount of traffic, after school type traffic that might use this facility on a pedestrian or bicycle or skateboard basis or something. Generous: That would be the hope, yes. Sacchet: Point of clarification. There's sidewalk on both sides of Galpin? That's what I read from the plan. Saam: Yes, I believe there's trail on both sides of Galpin. West 78th however I believe there's only the trail on the north side. That is something though that could be added with, as you get into a site plan for this site, you know to add sidewalk. Sacchet: Go ahead Kurt. Papke: Okay, that was my only question. Thank you. Sacchet: Rich, your turn. Slagle: A couple questions. Bob, the parcel that is directly to the west of, let's call it the rec center or. That's a bad word. The family whatever. Activity center. What is that? I mean ! know it' s. Generous: This started with right-of-way down here. This is... Slagle: I know but as you go westward, the parcel of land, you know follow. Sacchet: Let's say between the project and Highway 5. I think that's, let's stay between the frontage road and Highway 5. Generous: Yes, it's Arboretum Shopping Center. Slagle: Okay. And that is the, was that the Shell or the coffee? Generous: Yes, sure. Slagle: And the restaurant. What I'm getting at... Generous: Strip center, yeah. Slagle: And then Holiday Inn across the street. So, yeah that's on the south side. So then I go to Vasserman Ridge, if I'm not mistaken at least the first groupings of homes are twinhomes, is that correct? Generous: That's correct, yes. Slagle: So, we're suggesting, at least if I heard you right, that townhomes would not be acceptable in that area to the noah of West 78th but twinhomes could be workable. Generous: Under their existing zoning ordinance, correct. 56 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Slagle: Because obviously tying that in with what's behind it. So my last question is, in that study that the City Council approved whatever year it was, at that point did they know that West 78th was going to flow the way it is? Generous: Yes, that was determined as part of that study was the alignment. Slagle: Okay. With that being said then, if I hear you right you're suggesting in that area, that this family activity center is currently proposed for, you would envision homes with a Kwik Trip on one side, Highway 5 on the other, or on another side. I mean within I'm going to say 40 yards. Generous: That was what the study came up with in the land use recommendations. Slagle: I just want to be clear about that. Okay. Sacchet: Alright, I've got a few questions too. Page 5 of the staff report. The city will encourage the development of the neighborhood services center where appropriate. The proposed development would not perform as a neighborhood service center but a community wide attraction. Are we saying we don't want a community wide attraction? Generous: At this intersection? That's what the Highway 5 study said, no we don't. Sacchet: Why? Generous: Traffic. We don't want to have every corner with commercial. Sacchet: Traffic, is there a better place then next to a freeway? I mean a highway or whatever we call Highway 5. Generous: Well no, that's where you want traffic to be. Sacchet: Yeah, I'm just asking. I'm not trying to pin you down Bob. The proposed development would reduce the potential number of dwelling units in the city. We're talking about how many units that we would lose? Generous: 15. Sacchet: 15, okay. Policy requires that the development scenario proposed for the property strive to preserve and enhance the Bluff Creek corridor. The current proposal does not adequately protect the Bluff Creek corridor. Besides doing a delineation study, what else? I mean can you give me a little bit of an idea of what we're shooting for. Generous: Well we'd probably have to find out where it is and meeting the setback. Doing the plantings, things like that. Sacchet: Sounds like a good idea. So design standards would need to be developed and all that. Generous: Correct. Sacchet: Design standards would have to be in place for a concept PUD to be gone through? Generous: No for, that's the next step. 57 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: That's the next step. Generous: Right. Sacchet: Okay. Alright. We're asking that the access from West 78th Street is 600 feet away from Galpin. But then we ask that the access on Galpin is only 300 feet away from 78th. It's an engineering question Matt. I just was wondering, the logic doesn't seem to add up quite right for me. ! mean 78th is less busy than Galpin. It seems like if anything it should be the other way around. People want offset on the Galpin side than on the 78~ side, right? Saam: Yeah. Sacchet: So is there a reason why it's this way? Saam: Yes. Sacchet: And the reason is? Saam: Galpin is a collector and the code says 600 feet or you line them up. However access to this parcel couldn't happen. There isn't 600 feet of separation. Sacchet: So it can't be done so. Saam: Yeah, I mean remember we are recommending that that not be allowed. However, ultimately it would be a county decision. MnDot would have input in there. We would probably defer to them. Feik: They would, if allowed they would probably say right-in/right-out. Saam: Well yeah, they're not going to open that median. That would be the only thing it could be, yeah. Sacchet: Now it seems like the crux of this whole matter in front of us is that, and it said at least 3-4 times, the proposed development is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan designation. If we would recommend approval to the land use map amendment, that would bring it into compliance, right? I mean that's basically. Generous: Well that's part of it. Those other, policy issues would still be in place but we could find... Sacchet: We can, okay. So really the question in front of us is, is this consistent with the comprehensive plan or not. Generous: Yes. Sacchet: And based on the findings that you explained, this was guided as residential, even though it's between frontage road and highway, and on both sides however we have commercial. Okay. In terms of the concept PUD. What exactly is needed for a concept PUD? Can you help me out. 58 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Generous: Well general size of the development, layout of housing, number of dwelling units. Sacchet: Now does the layout have to be somewhat accurate or can it be so so? Generous: Well, it's only a concept. Usually they try to put everything in there at the concept stage and then you bring it down to what would work. Sacchet: Because we've had one concept PUD in front of us where I was really disappointed how so so it was. It was a very big one as I recall most of us were here. This one is at least as so so as that other one. Not to be derogatory but, so let me see. Do I have other questions? No, I think that's enough questions for now. Would the applicant want to tell us their view of what's in front of us here. We'd like you to come forward and state your name and address for the record and let us hear what you have to say. Tom Goodrum: Thanks Chairman and members of the Planning Commission. My name is Tom Goodrum. I work with Schoell and Madsen representing John Pryzmus, the property owner. Address is 10580 Wayzata Boulevard, Minnetonka, Minnesota. It's 11:00 so I know it's running late and I'll try to be brief on this. Sacchet: Appreciate that. Tom Goodrum: Actually a former city planner myself so we had a policy in the city I worked at, that things should stop at 11:00 because decisions are kind of weary after that. Sacchet: Well our curfew starts at 10:30 isn't it, if I remember right, so we... Tom Goodrum: So I'm very aware of what's before you tonight but we do have a guide plan change. These things are important. They're big issues. As I said, I was a previous planner. I know zoning requirements and comp plan amendments. I also worked for the Met Council, take it the way you want it, but comp plans are a big deal for me and I take them seriously. And so in doing this plan I was very considerate and concerned and that is an appropriate use for this property. I appreciate the comments made by the Planning Commission before I came up here. It makes my presentation a lot easier if I could jump on those right before I jump into some of the more details of plans. I think you're right. It's a 1995 was when the City Council looked at this. That was 8 years ago. We had a previous discussion before here, 7 years ago that many of these decisions are made. Can they be changed? Of course they can be changed. There's a lot of time inbetween, a lot of things happen. Actually when you're looking as somebody else has mentioned, commercial on four corners. Is that something that we wanted and no, if we don't want commercial on four corners. To the south we have a rec center. We have residential to the south. We have commercial on one corner on that piece of property, so I don't see where there's a concern or an issue with that one part of it so I appreciate the person bringing that comment up. I used the connection with the school I think is also very important part. That's what the focus of this project is. It's the family center. It's one where it supports a neighborhood. It fits in well with the neighborhood. It fits in well with the rec center. There's two different activities going on out there. You have the ball fields, the soccer fields, the rink at the rec center. Here you have a different type of activity, but still family oriented. Indoor gold ranges, the BMX, the outdoor golf thing. It's something I saw, and as I looked at this is where they compliment each other. I have kids. They're all in sports. You bring a child over to the soccer game. The other two are bored stiff. Want something to do so you're trying to entertain them. This is a place to go with them .... back in 1995. We have to look at today's market and today's land uses. Other items that were brought forward was, the Bluff Creek requirements and if there's some, and ! made a 59 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 note of this too in my prepared presentation and a lot of comments in the staff report on the Bluff Creek requirements. We had conversations with city staff, Lori Haak and other members of the staff on what those requirements are and we're very conscience and aware of how to, how our plan fits in those. The environmental issues on this site is a delineated wetland. That has been done. So we know the constraints and we're showing our setbacks and we're meeting those. That's a wetland in the northwest comer, and I represent that. The only other significant environmental issue is the Bluff Creek that runs north of the property. There's nothing on the property up to that north property line. It's pretty vacant. John planted some trees and that's the only trees on the property so talking to Lori, talking to staff, looking at the site, code requires a 40 foot setback from the primary zone. We have a sanitary easement running across that property line. That's 80 feet wide so at close we're getting 80 feet from Bluff Creek. Twice the size of the normal standards. There's no real reason to move the primary, secondary zone into the site. There's nothing there to protect. That zone and staff had agreed in conversations should be established around the tree line. 40 feet from there or 80 feet. So we are very conscience. We prepared for that. I know it's concept but we put a lot of effort into this concept because as Bob said, this is the first stage. If we don't get past this, it's dead in the water so this is important to us and it needs to be shown that we put some thought, we put some effort and we are concerned of stafffs issues. So with that I'll briefly go over a couple of things that were said. This site was designed to be developed, with the developments occurring, and I'll just give you some quick thoughts on what's on our mind set going through the development process of this. That was, we are respective of what's happening around us. The site, with the activity center being in this corner, we purposely moved it as far, or as close to this intersection as possible. The reason we did that, because we see this as everybody else does, as a transition from the medium density and the school property, We have housing up in here. It's a transition piece from the highway. With the building, the activity moved to this corner, we have an outdoor golf area here. Outdoor golf area here. The parking moved, or this area. The building, and as you've seen before, it's a very attractive building and it was designed with an architect to meet the corridor architectural standards. So we have looked at that and so we hope to, and this is the representation of this is looking from the north to Galpin, 78th Street intersection, looking into that site so people driving down 78th Street to their residential homes, this is what they'll see, and we believe it's a good site to look at. It's very pleasing to the eye and it will be the same look along Highway 5 too. But by putting this to this comer, the second reason for doing that is that we're leaving this open space here. We wanted to preserve as much open space as possible to help with that transition. We know this is an issue. We have residential over here. We have an activity center over here. We wanted space. We want to provide for that. Allow for how the landscaping we desire to go into this piece to break that item up. Also there's a building, acts as a physical barrier. The property acts as a buffer, a transition period between the Highway 5 and the residential area. The building itself acts as a physical barrier. It's an attractive building. Tucking the outdoor, the only outdoor activity on this site is away from the residential facilities. There are some possibilities of batting cages and a skate park. Again, they'll be this side of the building. Those haven't been decided yet. So with the activities, the buildings screening those, everything else is inside. It's a completely enclosed activity center so the impact to this, the residential area is going to be minimal. And I'll step to the traffic issue that was brought up and why we're looking at these streets in a little bit. So to follow along with our thinking, we're moving up to the northern area for the residential area. Again transition. Always thinking transition. Townhomes of this size are similar in size and character as what you have at the Vasserman Ridge. Because of the lot issues, the size, the shape of the lot, we just couldn't work with the twinhomes on this property, and we also had a difficult time seeing these high end twinhomes sitting on a piece of property that you have commercial, medium or higher density in this corner. You have a lot of restrictions on the property with the sewer easement setback and the wetland, so again we have higher traffic on a collector street here, collector street here. It's a busy comer. We needed to make that 6O Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 transition of property. We just don't see the upper end townhomes that you see over here working on this corner. Because of the narrowness of the lot, the smaller row houses, the townhomes made a real nice transition so we're moving from transitioning again from building units over here with 4 to 6 units, building, moving down to 4 units, single story moving down to twinhomes and transition to twinhomes. It's something that we see as phasing and pleasant to the eye and it's an easy transition to make. Working with the road alignment. I did have a discussion with Matt early on the project, again trying to put our concept together and make them work. We were looking at 300 feet and another separation. That conversation's in the early stage. We didn't have any plans but it was said that 300 feet is an okay separation. Things must have changed when site plans came in front of the staff and they had another chance to look at it, but what we want to do again twice, to do with two rows. One, higher traffic with the townhomes, even though there's only 12 of them there with the activity center. Keep that traffic near the intersection. We're 300 feet away .... happening in this area. The people are not impacting the larger single family homes in this area over here. The second access, the three twin homes. It's separates a dividing line on the north property. It separates the twin homes that transition to the other twin homes. There's not a lot of traffic there. Having a second access we see, instead of having all the traffic stuck in this comer, to keep it closer to Galpin...their own private access. They'll keep the traffic movement easier. Less confusion with the townhomes and activity center, and also I want to get at something that was brought up. Sorry I'm talking fast but I know the lateness of the hour, but there are a lot of issues that need to be brought up. Again the separation question came up and someone on the commission brought that, why 300 or 600 here and 300 here and I also pointed that out when I went through the staff report because here, they're both collectors. They're both serve the same function. We have a 300 feet for this service road that's going to serve between these two. They're okay with 300 feet if the county approves it along this item, so there you have an approved 300 feet along the busier street in this area, and we're jumping to 600 feet for the less used traffic area. Again a little conflict in the report and again we probably need some clarification on why we need to do that. We think our plan is better served for this development and for this area. I'm skipping around here so I've got to take a look at my, but another item or area I wanted to touch on and that was the whole issue with the loss of single family homes in this area and what this does. The staff report points out that there's going to be 33 homes that they perceived to be on this site and with only 18 showing, we're down 15. Now 15's not a lot but staff had brought up that, several times in the report that it's something that should be a concern. Also in the report though it talks about the size requirements for lots and the single family home is 15,000 square feet. The twin homes, you have a minimum of 10,000 square feet. You do the math, it's 33 twin homes, that's 660,000 square feet of land that you need to meet those zoning requirements. We only have 610,000 square feet of total parcel so physically it's not possible and that doesn't count the streets that need to be placed and it doesn't count the setbacks or other zoning requirements. Not only talk fast but I draw fast too. Here what we're showing is low density residential, 15,000 square feet lots. Minimum 125 foot depth. This is what you could do on this site as a quick sketch. You've got 13 single family homes there. We're proposing 18. We're saying that our development's 18. Matches what could physically be done under low density residential. To go any higher than 13, 14, 15 lots is going to require a PUD concept plan. Same type of stuff we're looking at today but right now under current zoning, current guiding, you don't get 33. You get 18 and we're, or around 18 and we're proposing that same number so we are looking at not losing any density. Keeping the same amount of other density that was, that could be developed there under current code. Plus as Bob had noted in his report with the comp plan, he had several comments or notes from the comp plan. The tax base and the quality housing. We're keeping the same number of housing. We're bringing in a commercial tax base. We are hitting both of those standards as noted in the comprehensive plan. Several other items in the comprehensive plan, I won't touch on them but were also mentioned and I believe that you look at it the same way, we get two different answers. 61 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 ...that's meeting all of those comp plan amendments so the quality of life, we don't see low density housing being equal or the same as other low density housing in the area, as noted in the, as...the comprehensive plan. The tax base one again. A couple other issues brought up in the staff report I just want to clarify or clear up. First I was a little discouraged when I read that they compared this to another part of the comp plan and it was referenced in here as comparing this to a neighborhood service center, and later in the plan it notes that commercial service center is a gas station or convenience store, that type of use, and activity center is more closely related to the recreational facility across the street. So I don't know where that designation came from. I hope that, we're not a gas station. Sacchet: We gather that. Tom Goodrum: Okay, so on the last one I'll touch on is a concern of future use. With the PUD and if it's commercial what happens if this sells and somebody else moves in. That's the beauty of the PUD and that's why we like it with this plan, because we know that's a concern. With the PUD, with the city approves it, they can make any stipulation they want with that PUD resolution. We adopt it as a PUD, the only uses on this property should be recreational facility, residential, institutional, office. Whatever you say you want. You have that ability so the issue or the concern of future land uses should be resolved with the PUD process. Again as other things, the comment on the staff report' s comments, but l'm not going to go there. I think you get the idea. Sacchet: Appreciate that. Tom Goodrum: Thank you. That's in a nutshell.. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Questions from the applicant. Any questions from the applicant here to the north? Kurt. Papke: I have a question about the specific concept plan information that you provided. This is a 60,000 square foot facility. But you seem to have very ambitious goals for what you'll contain in that 60,000 square feet. You list an indoor miniature golf course, golf reality, batting cages, skate park, BMX, go carting, swimming pool, all these things to fit in this space would have to be pretty small or maybe I'm not doing my math right. Can you maybe give us just a little more color as to what the actual contents might be and the size of them? Or haven't you gotten that far in your planning stage yet? Tom Goodrum: I'll let John but we have looked at all those different items and John's the master mind with this and I'll let him speak. John Pryzmus: I can maybe help you out a little bit there. It's still in the concept phase but, oh my name is John Pryzmus and I live in Villard, Minnesota. As far as the two rings on the plan here. The inner ring is high walls. You need the high walls for the batting cages, the golf reality, the children's play area like say a McDonald's type thing. A double story indoor miniature golf course. Those things will be in the inside. The go cart track will be on the outer ring which will be a lower part and that's when you see the building you have all the windows, it's all glass around the whole building, and you'll see this lower area. You don't need the same height for go cart tracks, BMX racing, as you would say, and some of the things that we're going to do, we're going to change it out. Like in this wing coming in here, we could have an indoor skateboard park but we'd maybe only have it for 3 days a week, and we could raise it up because the ceiling's would be like 26 feet high. So I mean there's going to be a lot of engineering that's 62 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 going to go into this. The swimming area will be in the L-shaped area by the Highway 5. And that whole eastern wing will be more for the young children with birthday parties and that type of thing. There will be activity center for young adults, maybe 2 nights a week. You know I don't want it to be like a teen center per se, but a couple nights a week that might be fine. I'm not sure there's going to be a couple upscale outdoor miniature golf courses and possibly a netted, if we could screen it well enough, a golf practice area. Just indoors, I'm not going to be as big as Pat Ryan's golf reality, but we'll have 4 screens. I won't be as big as Grand Slam with batting cages, but we'll have 4 indoor, maybe 4 outdoor. You know I won't be a one issue thing, but the skateboard park, we could have maybe an outdoor one, maybe an indoor one. There's going to be some new innovative things that my customers have come up with. Possibly a human, a foosball court and they play it up at the church deal up by Brainerd. I have to go look at it but hire a consultant to do this. And I'm not sure, there's a lot of things that will change throughout this process but it's going to be for family fun, but geared to sports. It's not going to be like a health club type thing or that so. That just gives you, and I don't know exactly how it's all going to be working out. Sacchet: So you're still working out the details basically? John Pryzmus: Yeah, we'll work out all the details. This is just to get this approved if we, to not go any further but then I'll be spending a lot of time bringing in architects to design the golf courses and design the, all the different things we'll have to be very upscale. Tom Goodrum: Commissioner Papke, to address your question directly, the reason we're able to be this flexible and have these different options is because the building is going to be a multi- purpose, the walls be able to move, shift around so we're going to be able to do a lot of different things, at the same time or different times. That's why we are able to bring so many items to you as a potential on the site. Sacchet: Question from the applicant? Feik: No. Sacchet: Question from the applicant? Quick question from the applicant. Outdoor activities, just want to clarify. You mentioned all the open space to the northwest that is. Tom Goodrum: That's correct. Sacchet: That area would have outdoor activities? Tom Goodrum: No. Sacchet: Not at this point. So outdoor activities are really just on the other side? South and east. Tom Goodrum: We're looking for the outdoor activities...but we're keeping it down by the highway. Keeping that open space between... Sacchet: Just want to be clear about that. Okay. And just a comment about your assumption about the Bluff Creek. The fact that there is sewer in there doesn't give an indication where the Bluff Creek primary is. Unfortunately we do have city sewer in primary Bluff Creek, as far as I know in some places, so just a word of caution there. With that, this is a public hearing. Thank you very much for your presentation. This is a public hearing. I'd like to open the public 63 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 hearing. Anybody want to come forward and address this item, this is your turn. Please come forward. State your name and address and let us know what you have to say. And considering the late hour I'm not going to wait very long. Nobody stands up, I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to commissioners. Comments from commissioners. Slagle: I have a quick question for staff. Sacchet: Go ahead. Slagle: Are we, and maybe the question is, are we able to hypothetically approve a land use change for what I'll call the property to the south side, and not approve the PUD for mixed development on the north? Generous: Yes. Sacchet: The answer is yes. Slagle: I heard that. That's it. That's the only question I have. Sacchet: Only question? Slagle: Yep. Sacchet: Alright. Well we're actually to comments. Do you want to add some comments? Slagle: No. Sacchet: We're going to go down this line then. Give it a try, Kurt please. Papke: Okay. I'm not conceptually opposed to this. I think even though this is zoned residential at this point, I think that the use that's being proposed on the south piece of the property here, it makes some sense. ! mean if you look at what's surrounding it and the viability of putting in lower density residential in here, I think there's some logic to where things are going here so I'm not totally opposed to this. Sacchet: Alright, not totally opposed. Bethany. Tjornhom: I'm going to say what I wrote down I guess for my thoughts for this. It's getting late and I don't want to ramble. Part of my decision is if I'm going to follow the city's comprehensive plan, which I guess as a planning commissioner I'm supposed to do? Sacchet: Well the question in front of us is, do we want to make an amendment to that. That's the big question. Tjornhom: Okay. Sacchet: Correct Bob? Generous: That's the number one issue. 64 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Tjomhom: Okay. And so part of that then encompasses the protection of the Bluff Creek corridor. Now was that addressed enough to where everyone feels comfortable that yes, it would be protected and it would be okay, or is that still a question that's not answered? Sacchet: According to the staff report it's not sufficiently answered. Tjornhom: Okay. Sacchet: Correct Bob? Generous: Right. That, in moving forward that would be one of the primary things that we look at and further filling out the development. Tjornhom: And that's a big thing? Generous: Yes. Tjornhom: Okay. And then another thought of mine is, you know putting low density in a high traffic area, which it has become now. That doesn't make sense to me. I guess I love low density but I just don't see a nice low density development going in there, at least I wouldn't want to live there, on Highway 5. And then I guess one thing I have is what is best for the community? You know would this be well served by everybody in the community, so I don't have any comments. I guess just questions I don't know how to answer. Sacchet: Well you made comments, thank you very much. Bruce. Feik: I look at this as an opportunity to really I think correct a zoning, an underlying zoning, particularly on the south side of West 78th Street. I've looked at this up West 78th one way and down the other and quite frankly Bob, I don't get it. ! really don't get why this was zoned as it is and ! think it was, I think in hindsight, not knowing what went into it, I think it was an error and I look at this as an opportunity to correct that error. Sacchet: Anything about the concept PUD? Feik: Well generally I like everything on the plan. I understand it's rough. I understand that the applicant is reluctant to probably spend a great deal of money developing something if it's going to get shot right down. It doesn't make any sense for us to ask our residents to do that kind of stuff so I think at this point, it's cobbled together here a little bit in a way that I think I can get my arms around it and visualize it. I like the way it steps back. I like the scale of the road with the higher roof lines, you know interior to the space. I like it. Sacchet: Alright, thank you much. Slagle: I'll just add that, as witnessed by my question, I'm fairly comfortable with approving a land use change, if we're allowed to, on the southerly portion south of West 78th. I'm not in favor of the current proposal to the north, for a couple of reasons, Another thought that I would throw out for us to consider is, if this was to go forward and give underlying conceptual, is what would be the hours of a place like this. I think you've got to be concerned when you're talking batting cages and miniature golf and. Papke: Go cart tracks. 65 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Slagle: Go cart, well I think that's inside. But you never know, they could put a door and it goes outside. So anyway. Sacchet: Don't worry about it now, we're not there yet. Slagle: That's sort of what I'm thinking. So I would support southerly, not north. Sacchet: Alright. My comment. I'm in full favor of the land use amendment. I do not think that low residential makes any sense in this corner between a highway and two collector roads. I think it's a no brainer that part, really. I mean I can't figure out why anybody would want to make that low density, or residential for that matter. Any kind of residential. Even if it's high density. I mean would you want to live there on that comer between two major roads on every side? Plus it's consistent. We have between a frontage road and between Highway 5 we have commercial on both sides, so ultimately I think that's a no brainer. I would however want to specify that this land use amendment applies to that part between West 78th and Highway 5 because that's where that takes place. Now, the other part, the concept PUD and I think, I appreciate your comment Bruce that for concept we can't really expect somebody to go way out and go through all the details and the investment and all that. As a concept I support this, that there would be medium density to the north. However, I don't think it's cooked yet. I think that part is far from cooked. We don't even know where the Bluff Creek primary zone starts and the secondary is, and as I mentioned, where the sewer line is, that's absolutely no indication of that unfortunately. I wish it were. So that needs to be looked at. I mean that part needs to be worked at so I'm a little bit in a quandary in terms of the concept PUD. If the concept PUD just means that there is medium density or what we call that up to the north side of West 78th, ! would say I'm in full favor of it. If it means that it starts looking at in more detail in terms of how many accesses, whether it's four-plexes or duplexes, how close they are to Bluff Creek, I would say I wouldn't be able to support it at this point. So ! don't know, whether you can help me out Bob. I mean I've been struggling with that concept PUD thing before. Generous: Right and the outcome of a concept PUD is you're supposed to provide the parameters for the person to go forward. So what are the issues they need to address or finalize to make it work for you. Sacchet: So if in your opinion the 20 points that you've put together as the alternative proposal, you didn't number them. It's 20. Does that sufficiently guide somebody to work on this as a concept PUD? Generous: Direction and if you have like the direction that you like the concept of stepping back the roof lines, that would be another item that we can incorporate as we develop design standards. Sacchet: Well and my answer with that, I would be able to support also the concept PUD frankly. So that's where I'm at. Any more comments? If not I'd like to get a motion. Yes, one more comment Kurt? Papke: There was some discussion before with the loss of residential property. You know I'm a reasonably new commissioner but on the other hand I've been around long enough to remember just a month or two ago we had the opposite concern with the property across from the Crosby Park development where there was a proposal to take something that was zoned residential and do commercial. So we can't say well we can't change anything both directions. There would be, this is definitely beneficial to the city tax base so I don't think there's any issue with that. 66 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Alright. Anybody want to try to make a motion here please. Feik: I'll try. Sacchet: Okay, give it a shot. Feik: Based upon what I'm hearing from the rest of the commissioners here, and I don't think this is exactly what the applicant was looking for but I think it might be a step in the right direction if that works for them, I move the Planning Commission recommends approval of the land use map amendment from residential to low density. Excuse me, from residential low density to commercial on the southerly portion. On the portion south of West 78th Street. Sacchet: A second? Papke: Second. Sacchet: Friendly amendment. We would add since the staff report really doesn't back up that recommendation, I would like to add something like because it's consistent with surrounding uses. Feik: A little more broad than that even. Consistent with uses along the West 78th corridor. Sacchet: Okay. Is that acceptable? Feik: It works for me. Sacchet: Okay. Generous: You know that other point about the error is good to put in there too. Feik: Oh, and sure. Comma. Sacchet: Well, I would caution about that one. Let's stay away from that. Feik: You can have that in your address to the City Council for me. Sacchet: I would stay away from that in the official wording. We have a motion, we have a second, we have a friendly amendment. Feik moved, Papke seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the Land Use Map Amendment from Residential-Low Density to Commercial on the portion of land south of West 78th Street because it is consistent with the uses along the West 78th Street corridor. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Feik: I have a motion, I move the Planning Commission recommends approval of the concept PUD, review for a mixed use development including a family activity center on the portion south of West 78th Street period. Slagle: Then how do you tie in the mixed use? Point of clarification. 67 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Feik: Well I think by, oh, oh, oh. It would not be a mixed use. So let me rephrase that. Let's strike mixed use. I move that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the concept planned unit development PUD review for a family activity center on the portion south of West 78th Street. Slagle: We're going to be able to... Generous: Yes. Slagle: Second. Sacchet: Do we have any friendly amendments? No? No conditions on it? Feik: Oh, excuse me. Yes, conditions as stated below. Except some of them are residential. Sacchet: Most of them are mixed use oriented, aren't they? Slagle: Can we table that part? Sacchet: Yes we can, but we have a motion. The motion would have to be withdrawn. Feik: Is that enough to go to council to give the applicant a clear signal so that he can move forward if he chooses to? Sacchet: Yeah, I think tabling wouldn't be bad idea. Slagle: Point of clarification. Isn't, if I may, isn't the intent of our motion that we just passed, to really address just the land use. I mean he could be bringing us whatever. Sacchet: It could be a bowling alley. Slagle: Yeah, exactly so I guess what I'm getting at is, we deal with the land use and then the applicant can further refine. Feik: So you want to table the PUD? Sacchet: With the hope that we get a little more frame around it from staff as well as from the applicant because staff basically worked very hard on the premise that the land use would be denied. The land amendment would be denied, so I think the reason to table could be to have staff work it from the other end. Feik: Do you mind if I ask the applicant if that would cause undue hardship or if you would like us to review that. Slagle: I don't think it matters. Sacchet: You could ask, as long as we get a real brief answer. Feik: Real brief. 68 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Are you under time pressure John? Feik: Table the PUD portion. Approve the land use amendment portion to give you time to work out additional details on the family fun center so that we have something a little bit more to review. Tom Goodrum: We'd like to, I understand what you mean you need more information on the concept but we did want to move forward. We've already spent a lot of money on addressing the concept plan .... before the City Council to see if it's okay... Feik: Well we've got that already recommended. John Pryzmus: ...if we want to do something with the batting cage we could do that at a later date, is that what you're saying? Sacchet: Did you want to add something Matt? Saam: I was just going to add, you had said staff worded the staff report for denial. We did include conditions just in case you did so all those conditions kind of address what our concerns were. Sacchet: And I think they're well taken those, but he didn't include those in his motion. Feik: Well not yet, but I'm not maybe done. Maybe we have to include those. Sacchet: Maybe you could say those that apply. Feik: You know they work. They work. They're not specific to mixed use so far. Sacchet: Most of them apply. Feik: I generally would, let's include all of them unless you want to delete one or two specifically under a friendly amendment, I'm going to include all of them. Sacchet: Okay, we have a motion with all these conditions. Do we have a second to the motion with all these conditions? Did we get a second yet to this? Slagle: I have a point of clarification. Sacchet: Clarification first. Slagle: Are you concerned at all about, even though it's a conceptual PUD that the northerly parcel, without, I shouldn't say. Feik: No. Slagle: You're not concerned about it? Feik: No because quite frankly that could develop independently with either this applicant. This applicant could sell it. It could go a variety of ways, 69 Planning Commission Meeting- September 16, 2003 Sacchet: Would have to be subdivided. Feik: Could have to be subdivided. It's going to be platted and everything else, and then we've also got additional road issues which with potentially two accesses that have to get worked out. Sacchet: Can we on one piece of property have a PUD for one half the property? That is not the other part of it. Generous: You can and actually there's two properties here. When MnDot took that road they created two parcels. Sacchet: So it is two properties. We're fine then. Okay. Feik: It's a winner. Slagle: Second. Sacchet: Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. Everybody in favor. Oh, do we need to tweak anybody? Yes, I do have a tweak. In those conditions I through 20. There's a lot of would's and one should. They should be shall or will. Not should or would. Should or would is neither here nor there. Okay. Is that acceptable? Feik: That's acceptable and I think I have one more. With the applicant shall, I'm looking at the rendering you know, work to have a, how do I want to say it? You step back roof lines or something reasonably consistent with the rendering, as far as the. Sacchet: Yeah, this will come back. This is just concept. Feik: So that's it. Feik moved, Slagle seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the Concept Planned Unit Development (PUD) review for a family activity center, subject to the following conditions: The development needs to comply with the design standards for commercial, industrial and office institutional developments. Additional detail needs to be provided to ascertain the quality of the proposed development. Planned Unit Developments require that development design standards be developed for the project. The goals set forth in the Bluff Creek Watershed Resources Management Plan (BCWNRMP) for the Lowlands Region are to be incorporated in the further development of the plan. The Bluff Creek corridor primary and secondary zone boundaries will need to be determined and surveyed. The applicant shall arrange for the Bluff Creek Overlay district boundaries to be field verified by staff prior to the development of a more detailed plan for this site. In determining the boundaries, wetland adjacent to Bluff Creek have historically been included within the primary zone. 7O Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Drainage and utility easements shall be provided over all existing wetlands, wetland mitigation areas, buffer areas used as PVC and storm water ponds. A preliminary grading plan must be prepared. The applicant must provide storm water calculations for any proposed subdivision. The development will need to provide storm water ponding on site for treatment prior to discharge into the wetlands or creek. The development must meet pre-development runoff rates for the 10 year and 100 year storm. On site storm water ponding must be sufficient to meet all city water quality and quantity standards. An erosion and sediment control plan shall be submitted. Type III silt fence shall be provided adjacent to all wetland fill areas, areas to be preserved as buffer or if no buffer is to be preserved, at the delineated wetland edge. A minimum 20 foot wide public drainage and utility easement will be required on all public utilities outside of the public right-of-way. All buildings must be outside any existing or proposed easements. Accept points to West 78~ Street, a designated collector route, shall be limited to one access on both the north and south side of the street. The access location must be offset a minimum of 600 feet from Galpin Boulevard, and the north/south access shall be aligned in the same location. A MnDot and Carver County permit will be required for access to the site. The proposed access onto Galpin Boulevard will not be allowed in it's current location. The access will need to be offset a minimum of 300 feet from the intersection of West 78th Street. City approval of the access location will still be contingent upon MnDot and Carver County approval of the proposed access. The applicant will need to submit a survey showing existing trees and woodlands along with canopy coverage calculations and proposed reforestation. The applicant will be required to pay park donation fees pursuant to city ordinance. The applicant will need to provide pedestrian connections from the site to adjacent trail and sidewalks. A wetland buffer 0 to 20 feet in width (with a minimum average width of 10 feet) must be maintained around the wetland basin. Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the city's wetland ordinance. The applicant must install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of city staff, before construction begins and must pay the city $20 per sign. All structures shall maintain a 40 foot setback from the edge of the wetland buffer. The grading and erosion control plan shall show the actual wetland buffer widths proposed to meet the minimum average buffer width requirements as well as the 40 foot wetland buffer setback. The creek and the required setback shall be indicated on the grading plan. 71 Planning Commission Meeting - September 16, 2003 18. The development will require a landscaping plan. Staff recomlnends that significant landscape screening and berming be incorporated along Highway 5 as well as West 78th Street. 19. The developer will need to locate all significant trees on the site and provide a calculation of existing canopy coverage as well as proposed tree removal. 20. Development will require a conditional use permit for development within the Bluff Creek Overlay District. 21. The applicant shall incorporate stepped back roof lines as presented in the renderings. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Sacchet: Comments for council. In summary we are in favor of this whole thing. We think it's a good concept. We'd like to. Feik: On the family fun center. Sacchet: The family fun center on the south of 78t~ Street. We'd like to see a little more diligence with the portion that is proposed as medium density or what' s call to the north. In terms of delineating the Bluff Creek and see what really fits in every which way, but we are very clear on the south side. That it fits and it's a good use and we support it. Any additions to that? No additions to that. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Feik noted the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated September 2, 2003 as presented. Chairman Sacchet adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 11:45 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 72