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PC SUM 2012 12 04 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING SUMMARY MINUTES DECEMBER 4, 2012 Chairman Aller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, Mark Undestad, Kathleen Thomas, Lisa Hokkanen, and Kim Tennyson MEMBERS ABSENT: Bill Colopoulos STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Paul Oehme, City Engineer/Public Works Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner; and Alyson Fauske; Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC PRESENT: Diane & Lance Erickson 7735 Vasserman Trail Larry & Michaele Martin 7725 Vasserman Trail Bob Webber 7608 Ridgeview Way Cathy Meyer 7662 Ridgeview Way Ron Schuster 8001 Acorn Lane Gerald Wolfe 7755 Vasserman Trail Steve Sheldon 7711 Ridgeview Way Michael Wagner 17749 George Moran Drive, Eden Prairie Paul & Vera Brady 2028 Clover Court Charles Engh 7642 Prairie Flower Deborah Zorn 7574 Ridgeview Point Roger VanHaaften 2102 Clover Court David Windschitl 7620 Ridgeview Way Dan Beno 7563 Ridgeview Point Brad & Tamara Hodgins 7633 Ridgeview Way Andy Maus 7656 Ridgeview Way Charles Peterson 7496 Crocus Court Ron & Linda Solheim 7717 Vasserman Place James Denton 2305 Lukewood Drive Bob Schwartz 2507 Bridle Creek Trail Jim Boettcher 7476 Crocus Court Mary Olson 7461 Windmill Drive Norma May 2050 Clover Court Roger Remaley, President Walnut Grove Villas 2198 Baneberry Way West Del & Barb Vanderploeg 7706 Vasserman Kathryn Peterson 7713 Vasserman Place Carrie Webber 7608 Ridgeview Way Melissa Crow 7663 Ridgeview Way Don Dahlquist 7634 Prairie Flower Blvd Kathie Price 7569 Ridgeview Point Chuck & Loretta Goetzinger 7521 Windmill Drive Kevin Kemptgen 7662 Vasserman Trail Tim Pass 7650 Ridgeview Way Planning Commission Summary – December 4, 2012 Mary K. & Art Roberts 7762 Vasserman Place Chris Hentges 7500 Windmill Drive Mike Benkovich 2352 Fawn Hill Court Mike Shields 7759 Vasserman Trail Larry Donlin 8038 Autumn Ridge Sarah Thomas 2555 Longacres Drive Chris & Julie Sibley 7683 Vasserman Trail Mike & Molly Aker 2131 Brinker Street Julie McGaughey 7175 Gunflint Trail Mary & Stan Valensky 7752 Vasserman Place Debby Tysdad 7661 Arboretum Village Lane Bill Guggemos 2165 Majestic Way Nora Stacey 7699 Ridgeview Way Josh Kimber 2060 Majestic Way Suzannah Armentrout 2420 Bridle Creek Trail Blake Gottschalk 2197 Majestic Way Mike Muffenbier 7675 Ridgeview Way Allen Bergren 7680 Ridgeview Way Dan Bock 7677 Vasserman Trail Joe & Eileen Kieffer 7602 Ridgeview Way Khai Train Chanhassen Lisa & Kreg Levine 1850 Lake Lucy Road Mike Hodges 8101 Pinewood Circle Mike Ryan 6835 Lake Harrison Circle Mark & Maureen Magnuson 7715 Vasserman Trail Brian & Patty Hugh 7441 Windmill Drive Sue & Jim Cantlin 7674 Ridgeview Way Abby Ellis 7284 Bent Bow Trail Steve & Debbie Ledbetter 7756 Vasserman Place Regina & E. Keith Deanes 7651 Ridgeview Way Scott Yager 2351 Hunter Drive Michael Hjermstad 2056 Waterleaf Lane West Elizabeth Kressler 1750 Valley Ridge Trail North Kate McGuire 7973 Autumn Ridge Lane Robert Ahrens 2351 Lukewood Drive PUBLIC HEARING: CHANHASSEN APARTMENTS: REQUEST FOR CONCEPT PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD) FOR A 224-UNIT APARTMENT BUILDING ON 8.08 ACRES OF PROPERTY ZONED AGRICULTURAL ESTATE (A2) AND LOCATED AT 7750 GALPIN BOULEVARD (NORTHWEST CORNER OF HIGHWAY 4 AND GALPIN BOULEVARD). APPLICANT: OPPIDAN, INC. OWNER: AMERICANA COMMUNITY BANK- CHANHASSEN, PLANNING CASE 2012-18. Kate Aanenson and Paul Oehme presented the staff report on this item. Paul Tucci, with Oppidan, Inc. outlined details of their plan regarding facilities, access, zoning, traffic analysis, Bluff Creek Overlay District, home values, and the fact that this apartment building will be market rate housing. After listening to 15 residents address concerns with transition from low to high density, noise, traffic, pedestrian safety, density transfer, building size, location, the need to stay with the land use in the comprehensive plan, and devaluation of homes, Planning Commission members had the following remarks and motion. 2 Planning Commission Summary – December 4, 2012 Aller: Thank you. Any other individuals wishing to come forward? Anyone from the other room wishing to come forward? Seeing no one come forward I’m going to close the public portion of the hearing and at this point we’ll have some discussion and comments. Anyone? Undestad: I’ll start off with my two cents here. Everything that was brought up by the residents here, I mean these are all great, valid points. Everything that the developer needs to consider in his own mind to know if he even wants to try to push this thing or do anything with it. All those would have to be resolved and dealt with. The traffic. The safety. The kids. The school. You know locations. Other locations was brought up south and I think part of what we’re looking at here, and again I won’t say that I don’t agree with the high density. The number of units. I think there’s a blend. There’s something we can do in there but to take a project like that and move it south to the 212 corridor or something, two reasons. Number one, I don’t think we have infrastructure down there in place to handle something like that but more than that is, again what we’ve created for families. For kids. For everybody around here. You put the apartment down there on 212, the kids still want to be able to get to town. And again this works for that but I don’t think that the densities, I don’t think the number of units on there is something that, you know that’s something that has to be looked at hard. I think the land to the north, if anything I’d like to see that stay just the way it is. The neighbors can take their dogs over there and take care of the grass. But again you know there is, there’s a lot of concerns. A lot of things that have to be worked out on there to even, even at you know in my mind as a less dense apartment complex in there. The location, it’s close to town. I think that’s a good thing. 225 units right there, that’s what I kind of struggle with there too so, but again you know the comments, the list and what’s going to be on the public record, it’s a lot of work. A lot of thought to go through that process so, that’s my two cents. Tennyson: I agree with a lot of what the commissioner just said. Conceptually I don’t really have a problem with it knowing that the developer is going to have a whole lot of obstacles and other hoops to go through in order to even get to 221 units. They’re going to have to address all of these concerns which were, as was said, everybody did a really good explaining their concerns. Everyone was really articulate with it. I didn’t know I was going to hear anything new and I did but to me it didn’t really lead me away from thinking that the concept in general is okay as long as we know that there are so many other things that the developer needs to go through. Thomas: I’ll go. I’m also in agreement with the other commissioners as well. I believe that the concept of the idea of what would go on this parcel of land is a benefit to being able to be close to downtown and have an apartment complex for people to be able to live at which is something that we definitely need in Chanhassen. We don’t have this capacity any place else within Chanhassen. I mean you heard from other people that counts we’re at like 2% which is considerably quite low for apartment complexes within Chanhassen and livable spaces for other people besides single family or twin homes and things like that. I also, I mean I like to kind of see the back part of the property stay the way it is and just focus on the front. I understand, I live close to the property as well. I understand that there are U turns there at the CVS. I’d like to see that intersection changed regardless of what happens. Regardless of what happens with this project I’d like to see that intersection worked upon. Whether, stop light. Maybe a round about. I don’t know, something needs to be done there so we can create a better, safer turning pattern because I’m not a fan of it by any means and I go by there enough and long enough and often so I’d like to see it updated regardless of what happens and moves forward but general of the process if we can work through some of the issues and we can move forward I would be alright with it. Hokkanen: Okay, I’m going to give my ten cents worth because full disclosure I live in Longacres. I work at Edina Realty so I go that corner. I travel there. I understand everybody’s concerns. Everybody did articulate all their concerns. I think the project in general, we do have a need in Chanhassen for market rate apartments. We just, the occupancy, I mean there’s just a demand for it. Whether this 3 Planning Commission Summary – December 4, 2012 particular project is the right fit, I have great concern about the density of this project at this location. You know what we can do something with it, and I agree about the intersection. Even if this project does not go through we need to work on that project. I drive there. I’m one of those people that has many trips a day back and forth on all those roads. Concerned with the kids. The tunnel. I just, the overall density of the project. I think it will be a nice project. I don’t know if at this, I want that land to develop. I don’t know that I would be in favor of rezoning it for the higher density so that’s my ten cents worth. Any questions? Aller: I got the packet and I started thinking about the things that we need to look for and the issues that are facing Chanhassen and us as we move forward as a commission and there are two. One, how do we provide economic development to Chanhassen and how do we balance that with providing a broader range of housing. There are two things that are coming about nationally. They’re news all over and they’re impacting us as well and that’s that there typically has been a decreasing in the size of housing and the aging population. We’re starting to look at more seniors here in Chanhassen. We’re looking at less single family residences and more mobility in the youth and in young couples and people that are just changing lifestyles, changing jobs and the economy so I tried to balance that when I looked at the project and I feel a real need for this type of project here in Chanhassen to give us the broadest range of housing and to make it available to our residents and to our neighbors. I have a problem with the density as well based on just the numbers and the size because it’s tough to wrap your head around a building of that size when it sits on a corner but I do know, and I’ve experienced here on the commission where we have the same zoning for two different projects and you have so many houses per acre and one project feels like it’s bigger, better and more closely related to the neighborhood than the other and it all comes down to the quality of the construction. It comes down to the landscaping and it comes down to the neighborhood and the facilities themselves so I’m hearing that there’s not a problem with the quality of the developer. The quality of the construction that’s been proposed and so that’s a good thing. I still worry about the traffic. The traffic patterns because it’s going to be something that again we have to face regardless. And the safety, the public safety issues so it will be interesting to see whether or not, if this is undertaken that maybe public safety agencies provide a report indicating what their view on this would be and the impact of that on our schools and on our parks and on our traffic. General crime rates statistics perhaps. And I would thank the members of the public that appeared today as well as those who made phone calls, left messages, emails, signed petitions because what we’re doing is we’re looking at the conscience power of our neighbors and the wisdom of the crowd so to speak and so we’ve heard from different neighbors with different backgrounds. Different ages. Different areas and I think we need to listen to them as we move forward and I think the developer so far has done a good job of that and I see no reason why that would stop in the future. So I would say I don’t have a problem with the matter moving forward, looking at the conditions that were in the report. That were requested to be reviewed in the report. Knowing that the watershed, water, state other agencies are going to come down and take a look at this and they’re going to have to jump through all those hurdles, and they’re well aware of that as the developer stated so I think if they follow through with this and they heed, and it sounds like they will, that that wisdom of our flash mob of planning neighbors, that it would be a good project to move forward with the concern, the primary concern being the density. Any other comments to go forward? Undestad: No. Yeah, I’d like just one more. I mean there was comments made about you know we just arbitrarily change zoning and things on here and over the years that we’ve all been involved around here, I mean it’s just a matter of projects that are presented. Back then. Now. In the future and it’s not a matter of you know okay we’re just going to change because he came in and wants apartments. Oh that must be what it needs. We do look at these overall in the entire city and I think again that’s what everybody’s been doing for quite a few years out here so we’re not just jumping ship saying oh well, it’s the only thing going on. Let’s give it to him. Again he’s got some decisions to make. If the densities aren’t there, then he’s got the economics to think about. I think that’s kind of the biggest ticket right there is how many units realistically would go on there. 4 Planning Commission Summary – December 4, 2012 Aller: I agree and in looking at our plan I think there’s a difference between having a strong neighborhood and a strong community and in order to have that strong community there has to be something that keeps us from being isolated so as much as we would like to be the single family home on a 3,000 acre parcel where everybody leaves us alone and there’s no cell phone, we’re not in that kind of world and so I think it builds community and builds neighbors if we allow for, and again the density is I think the primary issue that I’m thinking of with, call it a buffer but call it a change of housing so that you have single family. You have multi use facilities next to each other and the question is how much and how close. Aanenson: Mr. Chair if I may. If you wanted to, I was taking notes of your comments. They’re also, like I said, there will be verbatim minutes but if you would make a recommendation to pass your comments onto the City Council with the ones that were in the staff report and the ones you just enumerated, then we would make that recommendation to the City Council. If that’s your desire. Aller: So I’ll ask for a motion. It’s not an up or down motion. It’s a motion to pass these comments along. Aanenson: Correct. Undestad: I’ll make a motion. Aller: Okay. Undestad: We pass along the comments. Aller: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Thomas: Second. Aller: I have a motion and a second. Any further conversation regarding that discussion? Thomas: No. Undestad moved, Thomas seconded that the Planning Commission recommend their comments be forwarded to the City Council. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Aller: Motion carries. Comments will be passed along to the City Council for their review and action. Thank you again to the members of the public who contacted us with their opinions. We’re going to take a 2 minute recess while the rooms clear and then we have another item to come before the committee. Thank you. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Thomas noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated November 20, 2012 as presented. Undestad moved, Thomas seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 9:05 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 5