CC Minutes 12-10-2012Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Kate Aanenson: Right, we need to come back with Findings.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yep. The Findings of Fact aren’t going to be applicable to this so.
Mayor Furlong: So direct staff to prepare Findings of Fact?
Roger Knutson: For the next meeting.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Direct staff to prepare Findings of Fact for the next meeting.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any further discussion?
Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council approves
a variance to expand a 520 square feet of existing non-conforming accessory structure and directs
staff to prepare Findings of Fact for the next council meeting. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you very much. Thank you everyone.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Enjoy your chickens.
CHANHASSEN APARTMENTS, LOCATED AT 7750 GALPIN BOULEVARD (NORTHWEST
CORNER OF HIGHWAY 5 AND GALPIN BOULEVARD); REQUEST FOR CONCEPT
PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD) FOR A 224 UNIT APARTMENT BUILDING ON 8.08
ACRES OF PROPERTY ZONED AGRICULTURAL ESTATE (A2); APPLICANT: OPPIDAN,
INC./OWNER: AMERICANA COMMUNITY BANK.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s start with a staff report and again just for format here. We’ll start with the staff
report. Any questions might come from that. The applicant will be invited to come up and provide his
presentation. We will take public comments and then we’ll, when that period is over we’ll bring it back
to council for questions and comments as well. So let’s start with staff report, Ms. Aanenson.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. Again the applicant is requesting a
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concept PUD for 224 apartments. Again the Planning Commission heard this on their December 4
meeting. Included in your updated cover memo to your staff report it’s kind of a summary of their points
as it came forward. Again the application under the PUD concept is to, if it was to go forward would
have to have a land use amendment from office and residential low density to high density residential
PUD. And from, rezoned from the A2 District and would also require site plan approval. So what I’d
like to do then is go through the staff report. I’m going to try to weave in some of the questions that were
answered and then while I’m on a slide I think, instead of me trying to go back and forth on slides, if you
have questions while I’m on that slide that would be helpful. So again the subject site shown in black is,
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there’s office land use designation that is 8 acres. Across the street on West 78 is 6 acres that’s guided
for low density, and just to clarify, I’ve been asked this question, and I’m not sure that we can get it out
definitively. When it’s designated land use of low density there is several different zoning applications
that can apply so when you look at the zoning right now it’s A2. That’s typical when there’s no
development on the site. It keeps it in a low tax area until it comes in for development. The zoning then,
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
the agricultural zoning, when it becomes a project or someone submits for a project must match the land
use designation so in this case the applicant would have to change the land use designation. In this
circumstance the City Council has much discretion in whether or not you choose to change that land use
designation. Again under the low density there’s several different, or a few different ways that property
could be developed. It could be developed as single family homes. It could be developed as an RLM
which we’ve done a few of those subdivisions lately. A little bit smaller lot size and to get that zoning
application there’s a preservation. Similar you could do a low density PUD. There’s no minimum lot
size so there could be some attached product in there. Again the zoning designation doesn’t say whether
or not a property is owner or rental. It just talks about units per acre so under this it’s 4 units to an acre so
there could be, if someone was to come in here and plat a PUD, single family, there could be units on
there. There was an application that came forward and we’ll talk about it in a minute but I just wanted to
clarify how that would work. Any questions on that before I move forward?
Mayor Furlong: On the land use?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions on land use?
Kate Aanenson: I was just going to point out, this would be an example and maybe while we’re on the
zoning here, so if you look at what Vasserman Ridge is, that’s actually an R-4 so that allows twin homes
or single family so you can see there’s twin homes in there and then I’ll just point over here, when you go
over to Walnut Grove, that’s a medium density PUD so up on the northern part you can see there’s
actually single family that were a little bit smaller than on Windmill Run. Then you have the patio style
homes and then you have townhouses so they’re blended within there. So there’s different applications
within each zoning district.
Mayor Furlong: What’s on the south side there of 5? Those are townhomes?
Kate Aanenson: Here?
Mayor Furlong: No, I’m sorry, south of 5, west of Galpin.
Kate Aanenson: Those are townhomes. Medium density.
Mayor Furlong: Medium density.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Were PUD’s used for any of those neighborhoods that you just described?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Which ones?
Kate Aanenson: All of these. I’ve got some specific examples we’ll go through. This was a PUD and so
was this. With this PUD we actually got the extraction of that large open space to the west. Of that large
wetland there.
Mayor Furlong: What’s the, on the land use map there’s some red lines.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
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Mayor Furlong: One going through the property just north of West 78.
Kate Aanenson: That’s the Bluff Creek Overlay District, and I’ll talk about that in a minute too. Thank
you. That is one of the tools that we’ll talk about too. Any other questions on that?
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Councilman Laufenburger: Kate, when did West 78 Street go in?
Kate Aanenson: Well it was built right before the PGA. We did the environmental assessment document.
That’s what caused that property to split. We looked at the different environmental.
Councilman Laufenburger: ’02. Before ’02?
Kate Aanenson: I have it in my notes, I’m sorry. ’02, okay. Thank you.
Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you.
Kate Aanenson: When we did Vasserman Ridge too, on that project up at the Longacres one, we changed
a lot of uses. If you remember there was a group home out here that people didn’t realize there was a
group home so things have changed in this area. When we did Westwood Church and we actually put this
project in, that’s what opened up this whole area. When we put that sewer and water project in with the
Highway 5 corridor. So the existing land use, so this is the subject site again. We have neighborhood
commercial immediately to the east of this site. There’s two neighborhood commercials on this, and then
at the next intersection providing gas. Those convenience things for people in the neighborhood. There
is a trail. If this project was to go forward or any project to go forward he would have a sidewalk. That
sidewalk would be able to cross and then get onto the sidewalk here. Get on the trail to go underneath the
frontage road and then go underneath Highway 5. There’s also a park, Sugarbush Park also to the north
on Galpin which also has a trail. Again I wanted to describe the PUD concept that is intended. As you
recall we changed the PUD process after our last application of the PUD and really the intent is we
always intended it to be a less formal process to really give the Planning Commission and the City
Council, as well as the public an opportunity to comment that with a lot of expenses incurred. I did
include in your packet the process for the PUD so the Planning Commission heard from the neighbors and
the developer. The staff gave their opinions if this was to go forward and then those comments are again
forwarded onto the City Council so ultimately the outcome of this is to give some indication to the
developer what things would need to happen if this project were to go forward. Again we’re not doing
Findings of Fact and that sort of thing. It’s less onerous on the City’s obligation but to try in good faith to
give the developer and the neighborhoods kind of some indications of what they would need to do if this
project was to advance.
Mayor Furlong: And to clarify that process. Different than the process has been in the past. We’re going
to go through, we’re going to gather information again as a council but there won’t be a formal vote.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: This evening.
Kate Aanenson: And also we had Findings of Fact which seemed kind of counter intuitive to what we
were trying to do is just gather information for the developer and from the residents.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Kate Aanenson: Obviously the public hearing’s an important part of this too and you want to have some
context to it. I know other cities might do 3 or 4 pages but we want a little bit of context to it so people
can understand what the, and we tried to put all the rules that they would be bound to if they were to go
forward so everybody understands the, what the standard that they would be held to. So again there’s a
school across the street, and we kind of talked about some of the projects in the area. So the history of the
site. In your packet there’s a timeline of all of the projects and things that have happened on this. It
started off as, started back in 1983 with a conditional use for a golf driving range. That conditional use
was revoked for non-compliance of conditions which is pretty rare to revoke a conditional use but it was
and then it was reinstated with a miniature golf course and was used that way. We talked about the
Comprehensive Plan study in 1995 and then we moved from that with a corridor design study with
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moving forward with the, thinking about the new road, West 78 Street to provide a corridor for the
reconstruction of Highway 5. Then also Mr. Pryzmus who owned that property at the time also wanted to
get a Rec Center. He did float an idea to the City Council to look at a recreation center and at that time
another developer looked at the property and also considered, since you were looking at commercial,
maybe I could get commercial on the site. The staff felt like that would take away from those
neighborhood centers and our goal is to direct the commercial activity to the core of the downtown. We
also adopted in that timeframe the Bluff Creek Overlay District. We’ll spend a little bit more time on too.
So once we had the commercial kind of in place, or the thought of commercial and the developer moving
forward as we updated the next Comprehensive Plan in 2006, a developer moved forward trying to
advance a commercial, kind of office project. There’s been a lot of comment on the 12 units, 10 units on
the north side of the street and I’ll talk about that in a little bit but the plan was advanced and was given
conceptual approval and that’s this plan shown on the screen right now. So this plan had 5 buildings, two
stories and had residential units. The developer on the north tried to advance those residential units.
What the staff tried to do is to keep that area and try to maximize the commercial development on the
other side and keep that north side open for preservation so that project went forward and the council said
at that time, based on the Findings of Fact is it wasn’t about, the number of units was selectively taken as
one of the pieces that was important but the biggest issue on the Findings of Fact was really that they
didn’t want those two projects separated. They wanted them to come in as a PUD and be master planned.
What the developer chose to do was just go forward with that and the staff said well, kind of raised some
flags. We went back to, if I can just, if we can go back and look at the projects here. The Kwik Trip, if
you recall we preserved this and I’ll show some other preservation areas where we saved things so we
didn’t want to have that left out. So it wasn’t just the 12 units was too many. As I said there’s a lot of
different things that has value. It has entitlements for, if it’s low density. It has a right to proceed if it
meets the requirements so we said within that there’s a couple of different zoning options. On that one
there’s an extended long private driveway that the Planning Commission and the City Council had some
concerns with. To say that there would never be some units on there if that piece was to move forward,
there could be some units on there.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: Kate, so this picture that’s presented here was presented back in 2006 by two
different developers, is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: This picture moved through a lot of different iterations as we moved through the
Comprehensive Plan. While we were moving through the Comprehensive Plan there was several areas
that were in flux. This was one of the areas that was, there was a big push to get commercial zoning on so
when the Planning Commission held a lot of their hearings, this is finally what the plan kind of moved
down towards. You recall even at your City Council meeting with the adoption that they wanted to
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
advance commercial one but they finally rolled back to this plan. It came back through in a separate
project to get some entitlements for conceptual approval, which has no legal standing but gives them
direction of what may want to proceed.
Councilman Laufenburger: So had the developers chosen to proceed back in 2006 then today we could
be looking at, in that triangle a picture of the office building and on the north side those 5 twin homes?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct because the land use designation matches. We have office, which is the
land use designation and you have residential, meeting that criteria so yes, that project could have
advanced. But what happened is they came with the north piece only and that’s where the staff said no.
We want to see how the two parcels work together as part of a PUD.
Councilman Laufenburger: So saying no to it was really saying no, it’s not a master plan.
Kate Aanenson: That is correct.
Councilman Laufenburger: You were looking for a master plan.
Kate Aanenson: Right. So if you read through the minutes, you have to go through the Findings of Fact
which we just said we’re going to adopt on another project. That’s what we adopt in the Findings of Fact
direct to that issue specifically.
Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Mayor.
Kate Aanenson: Any other questions on that? Okay. So back to your point on the office zoning district.
I did include that in your packet. What’s permitted in the office zoning district just to show you. I kind
of summarized those. A community center, a church, a funeral home, health services, hospital, nursing
home, offices and school would all be permitted on that southern 8 acres so we also included in there, just
give you an idea of scale. What would be a scale that would fit on there so if you look at Park Nicollet.
Right now it’s at 2 stories. It can go to 3. That would fit on there at 56,000. We estimated based on our
standard floor area ratio that you’d probably get approximately 70,000 square feet making the parking
standards work. If you put underground parking, which we don’t require for office, you may be able to
get more. Office does permit only the two stories which is what they had on that site. And then also you
know Family of Christ Church which has expansion capabilities, a church is permitted. And then similar
size like a Ridgeview Clinic or something like that. Those are the ones that we’ve kind of had some
inquiry of. A clinic type or an office or churches are the ones over the last few years that we’ve had
inquiry on. So utilities in this area we talked about when we put in Highway 5. That was when we
actually ran the sewer, fondly called BC7 and BC8. We actually ran that. We did all the master planning
all the way out to include Westwood Church and so all that property that developed at that time, including
Vasserman Ridge, Walnut Grove, the commercial there, the southern part of the Pulte Homes and
ultimately Westwood Church were all built with these utility, with this utility project. So the utilities are
available to the site, and I just wanted to comment, we did put in the staff report, and the developer will
probably be speaking to this issue too, is that sewer and water connection fees would be paid with the
development as standard with any commercial, whether it’s residential or office, sewer and water
connection fees are charged at the rate in force as it would be for stormwater fees. If they’re subdivided
property then they would do that.
Mayor Furlong: Quick question there. I guess Mr. Oehme with regard to the utility services that are
already stubbed through there. Are they sufficient to handle the uses that are in the Comprehensive Plan?
The current guiding, and I assume they are and are they also sufficient for the proposal?
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Paul Oehme: Mayor, City Council members. The existing utilities out here are adequately sized to
handle the proposed size of this development.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Kate Aanenson: So then the site plan. Again the goal that we’ve always had from the beginning is not to
have development on that north side. To transfer it across. Again having said that, there is developable
rights over on that side whether it’s at the 4 units an acre or as the applicant’s requesting to upzone that at
your discretion, so with that the applicant’s requesting the 224 units. The multi-family residential district
is the one, high density is one of the districts in the city that requires anything over 20 units has to have
underground parking so with this project it has less surface parking than you would see with a traditional
office park, unless they chose to do underground parking which is not per city ordinance. So there’d be
studio, one, two and two bedroom apartments. There is a pool. Pool in the area and then also a
community space. I did attach in the staff report all the standards that this application, if it was to proceed
would have to go through, including this site plan review, a landscaping plans and those sort of things
would come again with the next iteration. Again more detail on the parking standards. It does, as the
plan proposed now it does meet the parking requirements per City Code. So the elevation. The
underlying zoning district of this R-16 is, allows 35 feet or 3 stories. This is 3 stories and has a pitched
roof. The pitched roof is one of the things that adds kind of the more residential feel but also adds to the
height so it’s over that 35 feet. Probably closer another 10 feet over. The staff, looking at the building
itself, let me back up on that. The height standard, the way that you, if you chose to go this way you
could put it into a PUD and allow that. We’ve got other examples of buildings in the city and I can talk
about that in a minute. That would be over that height. So staff believes that this is a highly articulated
building with the patio doors, the balconies, the pitched roof elements, the undulating façade and also the
fact that the cement board and brick. Again those all meet our city standards and that’s what we would
expect for the project. I’ll let the city engineer talk a little bit about some of the traffic issues. I just
wanted to comment on the background of the traffic study. Our goal, it’s not a traffic study. We were
just trying to compare the project as Councilman Laufenburger talked about there was a project advance,
just to look at those numbers if the traffic was the issue and then kind of give a comparison of the
apartments just as background data.
Paul Oehme: Thanks Ms. Aanenson. Just wanted to show a little bit about the traffic currently in the area
and some of the impacts potentially associated with the proposed developments. The proposed
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development is shown currently right here. It is at the corner of again 78 Street and Galpin. Both
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Galpin and 78 Street are collector roadways which handle larger volumes of traffic or potentially can
handle larger volumes of traffic. Like Ms. Aanenson had indicated we did look at current traffic
generations that the proposed development at this time would generate and we did look back at the Galpin
Crossing development as well. The numbers here are showing what the potential daily and peak volume
trips, both a.m. peak trips are typically from a traffic standpoint you want to design your infrastructure for
those peak hour a.m. and p.m. peak periods so just comparing the two developments. Basically the
Chanhassen Apartment complex would generate a little bit less a.m. and p.m. peak period traffic volumes
as compared to the Galpin Crossing but however the apartment complex would generate more trips daily
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on 78 Street specifically so just a little distinction there. This is just some current traffic volumes along
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78 Street and Galpin Boulevard here just showing relatively the volumes of traffic that would, are
currently out here.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Oehme, my microphone was off. If you could back up one slide. Capacity of roads.
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West 78 Street, Galpin, do you have, even Lake Lucy, do you have a sense of what, from a design
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standpoint, how many trips per day are West 78, Galpin specifically, because that’s what we’re talking
about, meant and designed to handle?
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
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Paul Oehme: Sure. For example Mayor, 78 Street it’s 36 feet wide. It’s a collector roadway. Larger
shoulders. Few access points along the roadway. You know from a traffic standpoint these roadways in
general can handle and support maybe 5,000-6,000 trips per day. Now that’s just the roadway section of
the street. It’s something different when you talk about intersections and how that, the level of service
kind of plays into how the overall system functions so right now you know it appears Galpin and the
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intersection of Galpin Road, Galpin Boulevard and 78 Street function somewhat adequately but when
we’re talking about adding another 1,500 trips potentially to that intersection level of service can
dramatically decrease. That’s why you know staff is proposing that we definitely look hard at a traffic
study in this area and potential impacts along this whole corridor if this proposal were to move forward.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Paul Oehme: So just for background information again, Lake Lucy Road currently carries about 2,100
trips per day along this corridor roadway, and then Galpin north of say Lake Lucy Road it’s about 2,400.
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And again 78 Street and Galpin Boulevard were right around 1,700n trips per day up to 2,000 trips per
day east of Galpin Boulevard.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. We talked about the Bluff Creek Overlay District. As you can see on the
slide, this slide, this is the overlay district which we’ve transferred density out. I’ll show some examples
of that in a minute. We’ve identified that this all area is in the primary. We talked about a wetland. You
can transfer density out of the primary district but if there’s a wetland in place, this is one of the points
that we did put in the report. A high quality wetland in here, that we would not allow the density or
would not be recommending that the density be transferred out and that’s something that they would have
to give us the size of that portion there so, but we have transferred density out of the overlay district as all
the other applications in this area. Let me just give a little bit more history. I’m not sure I gave this for
the Planning Commission but when we did the Bluff Creek Overlay District it was pretty cutting edge
way back when we did it and the council was debating whether or not, should we just acquire all the
property in the district or how should we take apart that and I think the attorney’s office advised us that
we’d probably be at it for a long, long time to accomplish that because not all the land in the Overlay
District was in the urban service area so we had different prices and not everybody knew what they would
be doing for plans to give a fair value so what we’ve done is on a case by case basis look at each
application and say, does this make sense. What are we getting for the trade off and we’ve used that on a
number of projects to say, should we be transferring this out and, or just letting them build on it and how
does that work so each project is a case by case so we’ve identified that area but if it’s buildable area then,
if you don’t allow them to build on it or transfer it out, then you can say the other option would be to
compensate which we haven’t done too much of that yet. Most of the time we’ve been able to work
through the transfer. So this area on the north side there is developable land. We just need to identify this
area that we’ve identified on the wetland study that we probably, because of the high quality adjacent to
the creek, that we wouldn’t want that to be transferred out. Now I’ll show a couple examples of high
density, or higher density and then also how we’ve done density transfer. This is actually a case of both.
This is the, that Centennial Hills right up here on Kerber Boulevard behind City Hall where we actually
transferred density from the existing project. We transferred over to this corner and there’s 65 units. This
is a 3 story building and it’s 30 units an acre. Arboretum Village was a density transfer so we took the
property actually on the other side of the street, it’s actually on the other side of 41. This section line
went like this. It was one large parcel and that followed this square so we transferred the density in front
of Westwood Church. Moved it across. This is a separate project from the Arboretum Village so I’m not
including that. We preserved the property behind here. The property up here. This is part of the
homeowners association on Arboretum Village as is this smaller piece, but there was development
potential on this side of the street and we decided that to topographically separate the neighborhood by a
busy street that we would be better to transfer it so that’s how we worked it so we put the units and
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
compressed the units and preserved that open space. So that’s an application of the Bluff Creek Overlay
District and density transfer.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Furlong: Yes, Mr. Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: So what’s the result of the density transfer? Those areas that you have shown
on the screen that are circled, are they forever prohibited from any development?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, they are on the name of the City of Chanhassen. Yes. They have a preservation
easement on them, yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Lake Susan Apartments are located right here. This is one I’ve been trying to describe
as similar to the setting that we have before us tonight. Three buildings. 54 units in each building.
They’re 3 stories tall for 162 units so a total of 16 units an acre. Again was trying to explain to the
Planning Commission is that this site is similar to, different products have different amenities. This
would be probably similar but doesn’t have the same, the project that the developer is proposing tonight
has a pool and a community room. This doesn’t have that. This also doesn’t have a neighborhood park.
It’s next to Highway 101. There’s a tunnel underneath to get you to the other side where there is some of
those amenities or to get to the trail around or you can go to the park. Walk along the trail to get to the
park so similar type setting. Then you’ve got the Presbyterian Homes across the street which is a little bit
taller I think for the number of units there.
Councilman Laufenburger: And is Lake Susan Apartments, is that market rate Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Yes it is.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Powers Ridge, only two of the phases are built. These two phases so we’ve got Phase I,
100 units and then Phase II is 80 units. There’s two other phases. I was asked why doesn’t somebody go
somewhere else. We have other high density property guided. Not all of it has sewer and water to it right
now and it may not for a number of years. It’s just not as ripe for development. The one that’s
immediately in this area for high density, the owner has asked to be taken off the City’s available land
inventory and doesn’t want to move forward but there is two parcels here. One of those is for senior
housing project and that way it was entitled is that’s with the senior housing you can have less parking so
could it be reconfigured? It’d be a little bit difficult but that would be the only other place but this one
does have 16 units an acre, like the same size that we’re talking about and is also 3 stories.
Mayor Furlong: And was that, Ms. Aanenson, was that developed with a PUD or?
Kate Aanenson: Thank you, I meant to say that. Thank you for catching that. Yes. This is a larger PUD.
This is the Lake Susan Hills PUD. The lots in there were a little bit smaller than the 15,000 square feet.
We also along Powers Boulevard have twin homes. There’s also townhouses within that and then the
final phase of the apartments and these apartments are also adjacent then to the collector road. Other
questions on that? So what the staff did is just to give you a sense of scale and where this is located, just
shaded in the drawing and plopped that project kind of in where it would be. Obviously that doesn’t
show you height and some of the traffic impacts that the neighbors had concern about. The visual
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
impacts but just to show you physically how it fits on the site compared to the other, again the goals that
the staff had was to try to transfer some of the density over here or keep it green. Similar to what we did
with Kwik Trip. We preserved this strip where they wanted to try to, try to put something across the way
so this was the goal is just to kind of show you how that worked and again with the, using the density
transfer or the open space. So even if it was office then, if you wanted to do a density transfer and not
have anything on that side, in order to make that accomplished then you’ve got to give something so you
may have to give more height or something like that if you didn’t want any residential on this side and
say we’d like to take something to move it across. When you’ve got two different land uses it’s more
difficult to try to do that. The only way you could accomplish that is to allow this commercial to have
more intensity to benefit from so that would allow the green space to be across the street, which is what
we were trying to accomplish. Then again we just tried to illustratively show kind of the two proposals
and what we were looking at as the parking lot. This one had a road going through on that and so some of
those you know right-in/right-out we know some of those are some of the problems that are down in that
area right now. So with that we’d just ask that the City Council provide their feedback to the residents. I
did have some other just density kind of things in the area but I won’t go through those at this time unless
there’s specific questions, kind of some of the surrounding properties and the like.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Questions for staff.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have a question.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And I think this is for all staff. Not just Kate this time. There is a consistent
problem with turning when it comes to the Kwik Trip. I know I’m very guilty myself. I will go in and go
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out. I don’t want to get on 78. I want to go back to 5 so I’ll make a U turn and I think that’s just
probably my method of great traffic flow for myself. I know it’s not for the neighborhood so are we
looking into doing something about correcting that?
Paul Oehme: Ms. Tjornhom, we are. Actually just last week we wrote a letter to both of the property
owners, Kwik Trip and CV, the drug company and we’d like to schedule a meeting. CVS, I’m sorry.
CVS.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I guess we have more problems than we thought.
Paul Oehme: Exactly. We’d like to sit down with them and discuss that issue and we’ve heard that from
residents at the Planning Commission and that is a concern of our’s, as well we do think that some of the
accidents that have occurred out there are attributed to the U turning movements out there as well. We
did, I did take an observation over lunchtime a few days ago. Just looked at where the traffic was going
in and out and I would say 95% of the trips coming into the development were exiting at that location and
doing a U turn on Galpin Boulevard so there is definitely a problem there. The problem is if you restrict
that access you know everybody would have to go over to 78th which might be a disadvantage for some
of those businesses too but I think with the comments that we’ve received and the concerns that we’ve
observed as well, I think we need to move forward with relooking at that right-in/right-out onto Galpin
with and without the development coming through so. So.
Councilman McDonald: Let me follow up with that because I guess I’ve got a different relocation of
what that’s like. Isn’t there a traffic island there that separates?
Paul Oehme: Right.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Councilman McDonald: So everybody coming north it has no effect if you were to change that into a
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right in, yeah just a right in only. They still have to use 78 Street to get into those businesses.
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Paul Oehme: Correct. From 78 Street, right.
Councilman McDonald: Right. And so the only impact is how you would leave the property.
Paul Oehme: Correct.
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Councilman McDonald: You now have to go to 78 Street then go to the intersection.
Paul Oehme: That is correct but from I think the observations that we’ve looked at, most of the people
going to these businesses, at the time that I was out there were coming in off of Highway 5 so any local
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traffic would, would have to use 78 Street.
Councilman Laufenburger: You said that was at lunchtime that you did that observation?
Paul Oehme: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Well just for the record, I’ve seen it happen at non lunchtime periods as well.
Councilman Laufenburger: What are you doing over in that area in non-lunchtime Mr. Mayor?
Councilman McDonald: I have too.
Mayor Furlong: I travel that road quite often actually. Other questions, Mr. McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: I’ve got a follow up on that intersection because yeah, I’ve been concerned
about that for a while. One of the benefits out of doing this, are we going to learn a little bit more about
how to maybe fix that intersection if it does need fixing at all because even as it currently is, it’s not
adequate you know even for what’s there let alone adding you know a structure of some type. So is that
kind of a benefit that now we can begin to plan on an improvement for that intersection?
Paul Oehme: I would agree with that statement. I mean to quantitatively identify the problems that are
out there we really should have some sort of basis, some analysis done to determine, you know quantify
what the problem is. How many U turns we’re seeing out there. What are the impacts? Look at some of
the accident history out here as well too so yeah, one of the benefits with a development moving forward
would be to piggyback on a traffic study for that issue as well.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, and isn’t it true that we typically do not pass on infrastructure costs to
developers? On a major road such as this, if this is a collector.
Paul Oehme: Oh, if it’s a new development being proposed?
Councilman McDonald: Well if it’s a new development, okay to me that would be a residential
development where we’re creating roads. This is a case where this is a road that as you said is a collector
road. We don’t pass those costs onto developers do we?
Paul Oehme: Well, if it’s a development impact to the associated infrastructure the developer would be
requested to participate in those costs, and they have in the past.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Councilman McDonald: Okay, so again then one of the benefits to come out of this is looking at that
intersection, based upon what’s there we could also be asking the developer for additional funds besides
the sewer hook-up’s and the other fees that the park and rec fees and everything, there could be an
additional fee there for the intersection.
Paul Oehme: Absolutely. You know once the, if we move forward with a traffic study, you know any of
that infrastructure improvements, any changes to the roadway system would potentially be born by the
developer.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Can I just clarify that for a minute? When we do the study I think we’ve got a lot of
vacant property to the west of this site so I think we.
Mayor Furlong: And north.
Kate Aanenson: And the north so we need to include all that so when we do a study like this we would
include a more comprehensive area because we don’t want to just look at this today. We have to plan for
tomorrow so I think we look at all that and typically how we’ve done that in the past is we’ve, whatever
this project, whatever this project is on the site, whatever they would add to it, they’d be responsible for
what their portion is, and correct me if I’m wrong on that Paul. It just sounded like he was going to be
responsible for whoever this is developing this property would be responsible for all of that. There’s a lot
of vacant property.
Councilman McDonald: I guess I assumed that we would prorate it based upon what your impact is.
That’s why I didn’t say anything because I know before but thank you for that clarification.
Paul Oehme: Yeah I should have.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah it’s not that we’re looking to do an improvement that’s needed there and
then saddle the entire cost with one developer.
Paul Oehme: Right but I mean there’s levels of impacts too. I mean if it does warrant a signal, say at the
intersection and it needs it from day one when the development’s open, you know typically most of that
cost would be born by the developer.
Councilman McDonald: So then that leads to one other thing. I’m sorry, that leads to one other thing
then. Until you’ve actually got this study you really have no idea what the impact could or could not be
or what the future plans could or could not be for this intersection.
Paul Oehme: Yeah.
Councilman McDonald: Without that study to help you.
Paul Oehme: Right, correct. We can speculate what the impacts would be, what potentially the solutions
could be but until we have quantitative data supporting those recommendations we can’t really move
forward.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions for staff at this time.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Councilman Laufenburger: I had a couple Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: Kate, I think this is just a typo but in your staff report you identify 125
underground stalls. I think it’s 200, or 127. Isn’t it 227 underground stalls? One stall for each unit?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Let’s talk about Galpin. Who has jurisdiction over Galpin
Boulevard? City or County?
Paul Oehme: Mr. Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: Oh excuse me.
Paul Oehme: That is the County’s roadway. They own and maintain.
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Councilman Laufenburger: And who has jurisdiction over West 78?
Paul Oehme: The City of Chanhassen.
Councilman Laufenburger: So that means if there was anything done to that intersection of Galpin and
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78 then we’d have to cooperate with the County?
Paul Oehme: Correct, and I’m going to add to that as well. Trunk Highway 5 is owned by MnDOT so
they would, since the proximity of that intersection is such, MnDOT would also want to participate in any
comments as well.
Councilman Laufenburger: Comments and funding?
Paul Oehme: Well I don’t know about funding but definitely comments on it.
Councilman Laufenburger: Well we charged them to make comments wouldn’t we?
Councilman McDonald: We would try.
Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah, we would try. Alrighty. Okay. Thank you Mr. Oehme. Kate, let’s
assume that this project went forward and the PUD would allow market rate apartments. Can the
developer then, if market conditions warranted, could they change it to an affordable housing or low
income housing?
Kate Aanenson: Well typically if you had a voucher, that’s how some of these operate, you could take
your voucher wherever you would go. I’m not sure, that’d be a pretty big stretch for, to take a voucher to
a unit of this.
Councilman Laufenburger: So do we not have jurisdiction about, once it’s built do we not have
jurisdiction about how they market those properties?
Kate Aanenson: Well the, if you did an affordable project typically there’s assistance on the front end.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah.
Kate Aanenson: So in this circumstance we’re not doing that so the only way this could work is if
someone had a voucher that was, you know to have to make up a gap of you know $800, $900. Typically
that doesn’t happen in this type of a project.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Okay. Lake Susan, what’s the occupancy rate on Lake Susan, do you
know?
Kate Aanenson: I don’t know. I just know antidotally that the City itself is you know slightly over 2%.
Around 2% for vacancy.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Let’s see if I had one other thing on here Mr. Mayor.
Kate Aanenson: So to clarify because I think there was some comments regarding that, if 2 people or 3
people got together and went in and used a voucher, is that happening today in the city? It could be.
Councilman Laufenburger: Probably.
Kate Aanenson: Probably. Could someone rent their house, same kind of thing. That stuff we don’t
regulate that part of it so, to say there would never be someone with a voucher, no. I couldn’t say that.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, thank you Kate.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Mayor I just have one real quick question. I promise just one quick one.
When we did our Comprehensive Plan and we turned it into the Met Council, would this give us credits
for what we are allotted when it comes to apartments? For high density.
Kate Aanenson: Well, for our density goals I think we’re meeting those fine with or without this project.
I just put in here the Comprehensive Plan, what our goals are for diversity in housing. We are short on
rental. The one rental project we had went condo. We know now that there’s an investment group that
has bought a number of units in there so that project is being rented but we are meeting our density goals.
The goal I think too is provide a variety of housing to our residents. Also provide that…housing. Also
provide the opportunity for our businesses to benefit that are in the downtown core to benefit from that so
I think we’re in good shape with our density goals with or without this project.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: So is there any direct benefit to the Met Council for us having this?
Kate Aanenson: No, I think I would say it’s more local. Again we put in the Comprehensive Plan that
diversity that we get. That we get some of the younger people out there that may be working here but
also want to provide that opportunity to move into the future which we again don’t have a lot of.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions Councilwoman Ernst?
Councilwoman Ernst: Kate, maybe this was in the report but can you tell me is this guided as industrial
and, well for office and retail?
Kate Aanenson: We specifically said office institutional. We don’t have, our zoning then for this would
actually be office and in that office zoning district again it’s, we say institutional would be more like a
church so we don’t allow retail. The previous application did include a bank and wanted that
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
interpretation as more of an office but if you open to retail then you’re kind of going down the route of
fast food and that sort of things which we did have a lot of requests for on this property when we were
looking at the commercial. The staff felt again at that time, we had vacant properties downtown that we’d
rather see filled. We’ve got our need met for convenience commercial in that area so it’s office guided on
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the south and low density north of West 78 Street.
Councilwoman Ernst: So is it retail as well?
Kate Aanenson: No, because retail.
Councilwoman Ernst: Not even as part of it?
Kate Aanenson: No. Retail, the only retail kind of would be they did want, someone, the previous
application did want to look at a bank and maybe a Starbucks or something like that but as you know if
you’re going to put that in there, then it can always sell and become something else once you allow that
and we’ve had that experience before. Staff was opposed to the retail part at this time.
Todd Gerhardt: Kate, can you put complimentary retail in an office industrial?
Kate Aanenson: Yep we can, our ordinance, sorry. It does. It does allow for the 25% complimentary and
that’s how we got to the bank, the coffee shop. I’m sorry, and that was kind of incorporated in there and
that’s similar to what we saw at some of the gas stations you see complimentary coffee shops where
they’re combined together and that’s how we came up with the bank and some of the complimentary, and
that’s what the other proposal had. Yeah, I’m sorry. Yeah.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Kate Aanenson: And that’s under that PUD process.
Councilwoman Ernst: Right.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions? You’re welcome. Ms. Aanenson, a couple questions here. A lot of
them have been asked that I had on my list but with regard to the, some environmental concerns that I’ve
heard about. The wetland on the northern parcel. The northern piece. The, well the northern piece has a
wetland. It also has the Bluff Creek Overlay District so the, I guess what I’m observing here is, is there
an advantage then to transfer the density to the south so you avoid the, from a stormwater standpoint,
stormwater runoff, any hard surface or impervious surface on the northern piece, is that the reason to try
to transfer?
Kate Aanenson: Well I think a couple of things. One, it creates that corridor that goes down the entire
length of the city. I think some of the other slides showed that more.
Mayor Furlong: The corridor along the creek?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, along the creek.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Provides that, you know we went back to the goals of the wildlife, that preserve, that
nature moving. That’s why people see deer in their yard. Provides that opportunity. Get all the way. It’s
a corridor that goes all the way from Lake Minnewashta all the way down to the Minnesota River.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: We’ve done those projects down in the 2005 MUSA which is the area between Lyman
Boulevard and Pioneer Trail where we’ve got the nice corridor through there with the one river crossing
on Bluff Creek Boulevard and the structure underneath there with the creek. That’s the same thing we’ve
tried to accomplish here, providing those trails. Those vistas. As we talk about those view sheds to look
across a creek, that common open space that everybody can enjoy. If you go back the reason why we
started this ordinance, we had development that went right up against the creek and we couldn’t stop it
and so we went back to the University of Minnesota and we looked at a way to try to incorporate, how
can we preserve this so everybody in the community can walk and enjoy the trails and observe that so
there is some developable land within the Overlay District but the wetland, the quality of that wetland
would not be something that we would support transferring over so whatever that acreage is would be
taken out, in our opinion.
Mayor Furlong: Now the staff report made some comments too that if under an alternative development
they proposed mitigating that wetland, that there should be some mitigation within the, somewhere else
within the Overlay District as an alternative.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: For a transfer.
Kate Aanenson: Whatever was to go on this property, on that south side, on that north side I think we’d
want to evaluate some opportunities to maybe enhance the creek itself and maybe do some other
plantings. I think that would be something no matter what happens that we would want to take a look at
to improve the function and value of that area.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. You mentioned for parking, again staying on stormwater management,
environmental issues, mentioned for an apartment building such as this there is a requirement for
underground parking.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: For the city but not for office.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: So is there less, on the southern piece is there less impervious surface coverage under
this proposal than under the office? Or don’t we know?
Kate Aanenson: We don’t know. I think it’s probably pretty close. It’s building versus parking and
that’s the trade-off to maximize your site to preserve that open space. Again it’s that, the City has to
evaluate the trade-off.
Mayor Furlong: And I guess it’s a question of how it’s developed, the other alternative or the existing.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct, and some of it’s visual and as we, you know we’ve heard some of the
height. Maybe the visual issue but some of it’s visual looking at parking as opposed to the buffer of the
buildings.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Okay. In terms of, just from a planning standpoint, stepping back is the, based upon the
neighboring properties, is a high density development, I’m not saying this one or this plan or that it’s
perfect but is a high density use, residential use, in your opinion seem reasonable at this location given the
surrounding property?
Kate Aanenson: Again I’ll go back to, because I was involved in all the properties around here, in
developing all those and every one of them had their conflicts. You know concerns with the neighboring
property but in my opinion, following again, basing my recommendation on what our comp plan says that
high density development should be along a major corridor with good access. You’ve got good access to
downtown. It’s a buffer between the commercial on the east and takes advantage of preserving that open
space across the street. Provides, and I heard from the neighbors they didn’t care about the noise
attenuation but that was one of the things that we looked at but in my professional opinion it does provide
that and I don’t see it much different than what we talked about on the Lake Susan Apartments adjacent to
101. Again these buildings have to meet MnDOT standards for how they’re designed so they provide
interior, you know they’re noise proof on the inside and that sort of thing so there’s some other design
issues obviously that would be of concern but we think it’s a good transition use.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Great. I may have some other questions as we hear from
other people. Anything else at this time for staff? For staff? Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: Kate, one of the residents sent some locations that were very comparable to the
location that we’re talking about and I’m wondering these all seem, they’re all very close to downtown. I
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mean we’re talking like Waters Edge Drive, West 86, Great Plains Boulevard. Can you, did you get
that, I sent that to you earlier today. Can you expound on those? Are they guided the same way or?
Kate Aanenson: Sure, I’ve got… This is the City’s land use map. The only place that we have that’s
designated for high density is down on the Moon Valley site right now. We also could put in, if we did
do a regional center, we talked about office in the area that’s just south of Lyman at the 212 interchange.
We talked about potentially high density within that, if it was developed as a regional commercial center
but it still may just be an office park. And that was one of the comments I put in in my staff report.
We’ve got plenty of office. We have less of the high density. The only other place that we have the high
density is on the property immediately to the east. That owner of that property has requested a couple of
years ago that we take his property off the development list. He’s not interested in speaking to anybody
regarding that so as far as property that has the correct land use designation, I don’t have. You know
there are some smaller pieces across from Southwest Station Park and Ride that has 40 units on it. Right
next to Southwest Station at 212 and 101. That would be the only piece that has some entitlements on it
today and that was 40, I think 44 units or something like that. The only other pieces that we had for high
density was the condominium projects that we did next to Bearpath and again I want to point out, when
we do look at high density, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be apartments. It could be condos. It could be
owner occupied so the ordinance doesn’t speak to the transfer, how that works. It just talks about units
per acre. Within that the market force comes into play when someone looks at a piece of property and
tries to match that with what they believe you know the market would bear. So there wasn’t in my
opinion another piece that, when this developer came and said I’d like to look at this piece, that we said
have you looked at this and this? It didn’t work.
Councilwoman Ernst: According to what the developer wanted?
Kate Aanenson: According to what the city ordinances were. The acreage that they needed or the
available, either one would require a land use designation so then we’d just go to a different area.
Neighborhood. There wasn’t a parcel that met that.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Councilwoman Ernst: So like Waters Edge Drive, that is zoned single family residential?
Kate Aanenson: Part of it’s zoned single family. Some of it’s zoned medium density. There’s no density
transfer over there. That would require an upzone too to get to that many units. We have a.
Councilwoman Ernst: And when you say that many units you mean the 227, right?
Kate Aanenson: Correct, yeah.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So could we find a place for someone to put 40 apartments in? Yeah, we could find the
44 units I’m sure.
Councilwoman Ernst: But no other place?
Kate Aanenson: For that, for even 200?
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah.
Kate Aanenson: No.
Councilwoman Ernst: 200?
Kate Aanenson: I’d still have to rezone something. Upzone something, yeah. I showed you the one
piece that we have that’s vacant, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff? If not, let’s move on and invite the applicant
representatives to come forward and address the council. Good evening.
Paul Tucci: Mr. Mayor, members of the council. My name is Paul Tucci. I’m with Oppidan. We are the
applicant. Before I forget I want to answer Councilmember Laufenburger’s question about Lake Susan.
In our report in August there’s 162 units in there. 5 were vacant. 3% vacancy.
Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you.
Paul Tucci: I wrote that down real quick so I wouldn’t forget it. I’m going to start, I just want to try and
give you a little overview. Kind of talk through a couple of things. Address some of the comments
we’ve been hearing and try to answer any questions. Kind of what Kate had here, we have the site as
we’re talking about here. We have 8 acres. 6 acres on the other side of the road.
Councilman Laufenburger: Just for orientation. Thank you.
Paul Tucci: Sorry. We are proposing to build 224 units using the high density designation of 16 units per
acre. Again as Kate had talked about transferring the density from the north lot to the south lot. Three
story design. These are going to be designated, you know we’re terming it market rate. The rents are
going to be in that $1,100 up to about $1,500 a month. That includes underground parking. The
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
amenities in the building, I think Kate touched on a few of them. We’re going to have, we have kind of a
patio pool area out here. Kind of a vista walkway through here. A community room in front. Exercise
room in the community room, we’re talking about, haven’t quite decided but a little business center in
there so you can work out of your spot down in the garage there’d be an underground car wash. I’m sure
you’ve seen those in other developments of this type. Cement board masonry. Glass. Patios. Sliding
doors. The articulation in the building as Kate had talked about. And we’ve tried to design the building
as referenced to create a buffer from the adjoining retail to the east and the highway and I know we’re
going to hear some comments about whether that’s needed or not but that was the intent here. One of the
things this shows, I will point this out, this shows a full access point here. We already are telling people
that we know that’s probably going to be a right-in/right-out access subject to what the full traffic report
comes through. I do want to clarify ownership. We’ve heard a lot of questions on that. We do not own
the property today. We are under purchase agreement to buy the property. It’s been referenced that we
own it. I want to clear that up. We do not own it today. Americana Bank is the bank who foreclosed on
the property. They are in charge of it at this time. We have a purchase agreement with them so I want to
clarify that. On the zoning I think Kate covered that. I do want to say that the plan that was talked about,
the 61,000 square feet of office, the 5,000 square foot bank and the 10 units in the back, that was just that.
It was a plan. We’ve discussed it. You know the City’s ordinances allow for 70 percent coverage, two
story buildings and one story parking garages. Kate put up a slide that showed the Park Nicollet building
on 3 1/2 acres at 56,000 feet. I just tell you to look at 8 acres and extrapolate that. We think you can get
100,000 feet plus. And that’s important. I just want to make that statement for when we start talking
about the traffic. I’ll jump into the traffic, actually real quickly. Yes, we would be asking for an upzone
here to transfer from medium density to high but we do think it’s a down zone on this site going from
office to high density so we think that trade is an equal trade. Traffic. Whether it’s our plan, the plan we
had up or a future plan, there are going to be added trips because of that plan on here. Traffic, I don’t
want to put words in city staff’s mouth but I think they realize that it will be addressed when something
happens here. We realize that. They realize that. We provided a snapshot. We were asked to try and
give a snapshot of what this would do. You saw the snapshot up there. We’re generating about 200 trips
a day, and I emphasize trips. Not cars a day more. We’re spreading those out over the day as Mr. Oehme
said and I would tell you that again I’ll get back to that 66 now. If there were 100,000 square feet of
office we’d actually generate less trips than that but we had to compare it to something. We wanted to
compare it to the most recent plan that this body and the residents have seen so these are major arterials,
or major collectors as was discussed. They’re designed to handle 5,000-6,000 cars a day but we do
realize and I think everybody sitting here realizes that that intersection will need to be looked at. How it
will go, we’re not sure. I will say I like where Councilmember McDonald was going about having the
City pay for it. I like that start. I didn’t like the finish but I did like the start. The wetlands and ponding,
I think Kate covered that and talked about mitigation and we’ve been debating that issue on the area up in
the corner here is, we have wetland delineation that’s done. We’re getting the area identified so we’ll
have that information and our proposal would be to mitigate that within the watershed and, but not touch
it. Our goal is not to fill this in. Our goal is to just transfer the density. Fees and services. We are going
to pay in park dedication, water quality and quantity management, city and Met Council SAC and WAC
about $2.6 million dollars in fees and when I first did the math I got to tell you I thought I made a mistake
and I called Kate and I think we had almost the same number and so I knew I didn’t make a mistake
because I knew she wouldn’t make the mistake and we were challenged last time about everybody will
pay those fees. That’s true. I will tell you I did some math based on that plan that we looked at earlier.
66,000 feet of office. 10 units. There would be about $800,000 in fees. That’s about a million 8
difference which about $1.35 million of that goes directly to the City for their share of park dedication,
the water quality and their share of water and sewer access charges. Just want to kind of give you some
perspective on that. We’ve been asked a number of times why here versus somewhere else. I think Kate
hit it on a lot of fronts. One thing I will add, or a couple things I’ll add is the proximity to services.
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Come right down West 78 you’re into your downtown where you have a multitude of shopping
opportunities. You have convenience retail. Fast food, restaurants. You have the amenities there that
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
people are looking for. Also we’ve provided a market study. The vacancy in the primary market area,
and the primary market area is defined in our study as kind of just on the north side of 212 and it goes up
into the southern part of Minnetonka, over into Shorewood on the eastern, excuse me. On the western
side of Eden Prairie and the eastern side of Victoria. Kind of picture that box. In that area right now
there’s about 2.7% vacancy overall in market rate apartments. Chanhassen’s running at about 2.2% so
it’s a very good market. Just to give you a perspective, the Twin Cities metro at the time our study was
done was the third tightest metropolitan area in the country, behind New York City and New Haven,
Connecticut. And if you look at the report, and we have provided that to staff, the lowest vacancy rates
are in the efficiencies, one’s and two bedrooms. The highest vacancy, which you’d expect, are in the
three bedroom units. You don’t see a lot of them in apartments and when they are there, they’re the
harder ones to lease out. We heard a lot about traveling, kids in the units traveling to and from the school
and the parks. Our goal is not to create an opportunity for people to get hurt. You know we’ve done a lot
of shopping centers. We are doing apartment buildings. For those of you who don’t know Oppidan,
we’ve been around for 22 years. We’ve developed, geez I forget even where we’re at now, in the millions
of square feet and billions of dollars of real estate but our goal is create a safe environment. Be it a retail
office or residential environment for the residents and the visitors to that facility. As Kate pointed out
earlier there is a connection underneath to get to and from the school. We’ve heard a lot about crossing
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down here. You know when West 78 was built there was an intersection built and an alternate route to
get across the highway that was designed for residents, not only of this development but of all the stuff on
the north side of the road to get to the south side, and vice versa. You know somebody in these
apartments, maybe they want to cross here, maybe they don’t but they can come across. Get on that same
trail. Get across and get over to Kwik Trip or get over to CVS so you know we understand there’s an
issue. We’re not trying to build something to create a problem. Talked a little bit about, we heard a little
bit about housing valuations and had been asked well this, you know how do we know this isn’t going to
cause a decrease in our property valuations. I provided the City with a study from 2000. I grant you
that’s a little old, that was done by Maxfield for the Minneapolis Housing Fund. They were at that time
doing assisted, subsidized housing project. We’re not proposing that but their report said that there would
be no impact to values of surrounding homes, and I know people will or will not believe that but we don’t
believe that will be. We’ve heard that on the retail side for years, that you’re coming into our back yard.
It’s going to affect us. You know we want to build a quality product because we want the value to be
there today, tomorrow, well into the future. The other thing that we’ve heard a lot about is, you know the
power lines that run through here and the visuals of, especially the people on this leg of the development
looking at the power lines. And you know we have looked at that and we’ve looked around at other spots
when we got into this and I’ll just take a moment to point out a couple of things. Kate, if you could just
pull that up just a little. This is the intersection of Highway 5 and Dell Road. I’m sure everybody’s
familiar with that. These are the new townhomes that went in. I live just right back here. You’ve got the
power lines running right through the edge of that. Again, not necessarily, these are not, these are
townhomes. These are not apartments but same impact. The bigger telling area for me is, again I give
you a little bit.
Mayor Furlong: Can you back up a little bit on the camera?
Paul Tucci: Oh.
Mayor Furlong: No, you’re fine. I’m just, whoever’s controlling the camera.
Paul Tucci: I’ll move that over to right about there. The parking lot you see right here is PAX Christi
Church, Pioneer and Homeward Hills. If anyone’s familiar with that area and kind of the center of, south
center of Eden Prairie. These are the high voltage lines that run through the back yards. I have a friend
who lives in this house right there and you know he’s owned that house for a number of years. Power
lines were there when he bought it. I guess my point is that we have a rental property. People have made
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
decisions around that kind of issue. We respect the comments being made but we’ve evaluated and we
think that the program and the design that we have will not be affected by that look. Again we’ve studied
the market. We’ve studied the financial impacts. We feel there’s a market. We feel that there is the
ability to make a viable project happen on this site. I think at the end of the day this boils down to a
couple of questions. Traffic, which we’ve already talked about at length and density. We’re proposing to
transfer the density and we’re looking for some direction from this body as to where you’re at because we
do think this is a viable project and one that’s needed in the city so with that I’ll try to answer any
questions I can.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you Mr. Tucci. Questions for the applicant.
Councilman McDonald: Well I have one question and a comment for you.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah, the purpose of my question was really to provide you with some
information because I do want you to know that yeah, we do share costs so if it came across that we were
going to do something for free, I’m sorry I misled you.
Paul Tucci: No, you started down that road. We were hoping you’d continue down that road but we
knew very well where we stood in that discussion.
Councilman McDonald: There’s always a method to madness. I guess, I too have questions about the
traffic and about the density and I guess right now, you know you’ve said you’re willing to go along with
definitely a traffic study and you’re looking for guidance as far as the density transfers. If any of this
comes out to the point where you know it’s no longer feasible that we’ve put too many limits on you and
those types of things, you understand that and you realize that at some point you may have to pull the
plug if the answers don’t come out that are acceptable to either you or to the City. That is a basic
assumption going into this.
Paul Tucci: I guess I’m looking for some direction from this body as to where you see this parcel being
developed.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Paul Tucci: Be it you know a 66,000 foot office development. 100,000 foot office development. 24
units in the back or the proposal we have. We have something on the table. We’re looking for some
direction and we can evaluate once we have some direction.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, fair enough. That’s all.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other questions for the applicant?
Councilman Laufenburger: Please.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Mayor. You put together a good pitch Paul, and I appreciate
that and obviously you’re experienced. What did you say, 25 years Oppidan has been in business?
Paul Tucci: 22.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Councilman Laufenburger: 22. I know your organization. You’ve got quality people there and I respect
that. Can you talk about some of the other apartment projects that you’ve built, please.
Paul Tucci: Sure. We are, as we speak we are doing, I’m going to do the math in my head real quick.
160 units up in western North Dakota. We’re in the oil boom.
Councilman Laufenburger: Good decision.
Paul Tucci: And that is, right now it’s four separate projects and we’re actually looking at 3 more up
there. We have this one and I have a gentleman that I’ve done a number of fee development deals. He’s
actually the owner and we help him through the process and we’re looking at almost a similar size one,
180 unit one up on Highway 65 and Clover Leaf in Blaine. Right next to the Northern Tool, if you know
the area.
Councilman Laufenburger: Oh yeah.
Paul Tucci: Just on the west side of the Northern Tool.
Councilman Laufenburger: Yep. Yep. Can you talk a little bit about a construction schedule? In other
words, how long from the time you put shovel in the ground until you have a model and then you’re ready
to occupy?
Paul Tucci: Roughly a year and you know there’s folks who are telling us they can speed it up and
frankly we’re not sure you want to speed it up because, depending on when you start. The last thing we
want to have happen is, we have it happening up on one of our buildings in North Dakota. We’re going
st
to be done on February 1. Thankfully up in North Dakota given what’s happening there, people are
st
willing to move in February 1. Down here that wouldn’t be the case so timing would be, you’d want to
have your models open somewhere March and April. Give it some lead up time and start moving people
in when school gets out. If they have kids, people want to move spring, summer, into the fall. They don’t
want to move in the winter so we’d try to time it where we could start sometime in the end of spring,
early summer next year and then have residents moving in a year from then.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. And does Oppidan develop only or do they develop and operate?
Paul Tucci: We have a partner who would be the operator of this, yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Okay. That’s all I had at this time.
Mayor Furlong: As a follow-up question on the schedule of the rental, over what time period do you see
all the unit becoming fully occupied?
Paul Tucci: The projection that we have says it will take somewhere between 16 and 24 months.
Mayor Furlong: So once you open up in the, I think you said the spring of 2014? You’d be looking at.
Paul Tucci: End of ’15 to be full.
Mayor Furlong: Before it’d be full.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Paul Tucci: Yeah. Maybe early, even into early ’16 and it’s all going to depend on how the marketing
and incentive programs work on the front end.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Paul Tucci: The goal would be to be done a lot sooner than that.
Mayor Furlong: And traffic, I think we’ve already talked about that. In terms of the density, in terms of
the number of units, was that just the gross acreage?
Paul Tucci: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: By the 16 per acre? Okay. Alright, very good. Thanks. Other questions for the applicant
right now? There may be some as some of the public comments as well so.
Paul Tucci: Sure. Thank you for your time.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Let’s go ahead, we will accept some
public comments. We’re interested in hearing what people have to say. First of all I will say, I appreciate
the volume and the detail with which the emails and phone calls and comments have been made. It is,
there’s been a lot of thought and effort put into those correspondence and I can tell while I haven’t had, I
don’t know about my fellow council members, I haven’t had a chance to reply to everyone. I can tell you
that I have read them so thank you for that and for the time that people have put into, whether you’re here
in the council chambers or at home, making, bringing the issues to the forefront on this concept so with
that I’d be happy to listen to any comments from the public. If you’d like to come forward and, to the
podium and state your name and address for the record please.
Julie Greely: Hi, my name is Julie Greely. I live at 2431 Bridle Creek on the other side of, right there
near the Rec Center and I just, I wanted to bring one thing forward that I haven’t heard yet. I’m not
opposed to having an apartment complex in the area. What I’m seeing is my kids actually go to
Minnetonka School District so beyond the traffic from just that 5 area, I’ve, I experience the traffic going
all the way down from Bridle Creek to 7 to get my kids over to the Excelsior Elementary school there and
if you’ve ever tried to get your kids to school in the morning, that is all backed up, both in the morning
and the afternoon.
Mayor Furlong: On which road?
Julie Greely: Yeah so if you’ve got a map I can show you.
Mayor Furlong: 5?
Councilman Laufenburger: It must be Galpin.
Mayor Furlong: Galpin?
Julie Greely: Yeah, Galpin. So beyond that, just that intersection, if you go all the way down past Long,
what is it?
Councilman Laufenburger: Lake Lucy?
Julie Greely: Yeah, Lake, past Lake Lucy Road.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Up to Highway 7?
Julie Greely: Yeah, out to Highway 7. You’ve got to cross 7 and merge over quickly to get to Excelsior
Elementary. That’s the only way to get to Excelsior Elementary and my kids used to go to Bluff Creek
and the only reason we moved to Minnetonka is because my son is attending the gifted program, which
they don’t have at Bluff Creek, so we made a choice to open enroll in Minnetonka.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Julie Greely: So I’m seeing in that area there is, from what I understand, is zoned for both Minnetonka
kids and Bluff Creek kids so they could go to either one because I have some friends who live in
Vasserman Ridge and their kids, they choose, either they go to Minnetonka or Bluff.
Mayor Furlong: Okay so.
Julie Greely: So I guess my point is the, all that traffic is not just going to be in that area. It’s going to
funnel all the way down to 7 and that, those cars are going to be backed up there on 7 and it takes a good
15 minutes to get kind of through there too so you’re not going to only have traffic in here. You’re going
to have traffic all the way down there.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Just for clarification, is there, and thank you. I mean what I’m hearing
you say is that the issue is traffic all the way along Galpin Boulevard.
Julie Greely: Yeah, so that’s one issue and then the other issue is the CVS there. Just the services that are
provided through the 24/7 care. The nurses there. That, and the sick season during the winter is jam
packed. I mean you’ve got 15-20 people waiting there to get in to get your kids treated, if they’ve got
strep throat or whatever. I mean you add the apartment complex onto that and that CVS, those services in
there are going to be, I mean you’re going to have a problem with capacity there I think.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you.
Julie Greely: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Oh yes, Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I had one question.
Mayor Furlong: Ma’am. Ms. Greely.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Julie. Just one informal question.
Julie Greely: Yes.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Looking at this parcel of land and you live so close to it.
Mayor Furlong: If you could come back up. Excuse me sir. Just in case she comments we can.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: What kind of development would you want to see there?
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Julie Greely: Yeah, so I think for me it’s less about what’s, I mean the people that live in that apartment,
I mean they’re going to be going, coming all the time versus an office. You know you’ve got people
coming in there and not really using the CVS for the needs of the community so I’d like to see something
that would benefit those, like me in the community so something like, for an example we go to the park
all the time. There’s no ice cream shop or anything like that. I know we talked about retail but, you
know what do we use CVS for? We go there and we get candy for our kids and it’s that small town
community that we love. You know I mean go in there. Go into the gas station, walking down there. We
live literally right behind those apartment complexes which are very low to the ground and we don’t even
notice them so I guess part of it is, the structure there and then all the busy activity around there, I mean
we’re not going to probably be biking or walking down in that area anymore because I mean if we’re
trying to cross 5 there to go around and go underneath and around with our you know 5 and 7 year old,
it’s just going to be a difficult area. We’ll probably avoid it. And then if we go all the way down off to 7
where we do now, I mean that traffic, there’s going to be so much traffic there that, I don’t know. I just, I
don’t know what it’s going to be like but personally I’d rather see something where we could benefit with
our kids and our family like a bakery or you know ice cream shop or you know, an office building like a
dentist or whatever. That’s my personal. Feel free to comment.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you. And Mr. Mayor if I could, this is a question I’d like to ask of
anybody that has an opinion about what they would like to see there or what they think a good use would
be.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: If that’s acceptable.
Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. I will say, as we do that, that as a City Council we can’t pick and choose
businesses.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No, absolutely not.
Mayor Furlong: And for the group along the parade route that still wants a Dairy Queen from the mayor,
we don’t pick and choose businesses so I’ll leave it at that.
Councilman Laufenburger: I think KFC rises about Dairy Queen.
Mayor Furlong: Sir, thank you.
Art Roberts: My name is Art Roberts, 7762 Vasserman Place in Vasserman Ridge. Right next to the
development. I’d like you to shift gears for a second. We’ve been talking for things for about an hour,
haven’t we? Buildings, streets, land use, all that. Seems to me this ought to turn on not things but human
beings and people in this sense. It seems to me it’s a mistake to put high density residential in that
location because of the three mantras of real estate. Location, location, location. Very simply this, the
problem you face, the danger you face, the risk that presents itself when you put that high density right on
the highest volume street in Chanhassen, Highway 5 and put it across from the school. The elementary
school, the city park and the Rec Center is that you’re going to have a tremendous amount of traffic, kids,
teenagers going back and forth across that street all year long. I sent an email to the board today and did
some conservative calculations which say, maybe 33,000 crossings per year, and I think that was low
based on what family population we have in Vasserman Ridge but the point is, that’s tens of thousands of
crossings across a tremendously busy street which is going to become more and more so as Victoria and
everything builds. It’s high speed. The crossing times are very minimal because it’s biased towards
Arboretum and we didn’t have a number. We said 5,000 cars on Galpin. What does that mean? 10,000
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
on Arboretum or Highway 5? Must be huge number of cars there. And the point is you’re just exposing
all those kids with a huge number of crossings to all the risk and even though the developer says here, you
know quote unquote, our goal is a safe environment. He’s going to have no control over that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Art Roberts: And the fact is those kids aren’t going to go 400, 500 yards down the road every time to go
under the tunnel. It’s visually right there. Everybody’s going to fight their way across Galpin and fight
their way, and it seems to me that if I were on the City Council or the Planning Commission I would not
want to expose 225 families and their kids to that risk day after day after day. And for that reason I think
you should never rezone that property from commercial to high density residential for this developer or
anyone else.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Art Roberts: There’s just too much risk involved you know. We’re looking at too many accidents of you
know kids getting killed or whatever to even consider it.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Do we have any.
Art Roberts: And for the last hour we haven’t talked about this issue but to me it’s the fundamental issue
on which this turns which says, sorry developers. That’s never going to be high density residential.
Mayor Furlong: I appreciate the comments. Do we have any sense Mr. Oehme on the amount of
pedestrian traffic across Highway 5 at this time?
Paul Oehme: I don’t have any data for that.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Alright, thank you.
Larry Martin: Good, my name is Larry Martin. I live at 7725 Vasserman Trail and I just have a few
comments here. I’ll be brief. One is the traffic. I would implore the City Council to do this traffic study
before we start construction. Do that study. Get it paid for. Get the necessary things we have to do there
and then go into construction. Concern I have is the height of the building too. I think Paul has said 47
feet on the peaks in that area. That’s pretty close to that corner there and as you see it wraps around both
Galpin and Highway 5. Along Highway 5 they’re going to have balconies with glass doors in it. I’m a
graduate acoustic engineer. I haven’t got my license so I’m not speaking as that but I don’t know that you
want to go out on your balcony there. Another reason not to go on the balconies is those power lines.
Power lines he showed over in Eden Prairie were above single family homes. The power lines here are
going to be eye level with the apartments and as you all know that power line is going to be upgraded
from 69,000 volts to 115,000 volts hopefully in the next year here so. The children thing is something we
all worry about and the tunnel under 5, we had some comments the other night that it’s usually filled with
mud in the summer and in the winter it’s filled with ice so the kids don’t use it so thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Do we have any sense Mr. Oehme at the height of the power lines?
That’s come up a couple times, or Mr. Tucci.
Paul Oehme: I don’t recall.
Larry Martin: They’ll be eye level with the third floor.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Others. Good evening.
Dan Bock: Good evening. Thank you council members, mayor, staff, Mr. Tucci. My name is Dan
Bock, 7677 Vasserman Trail. Live in the neighborhood just northwest of there. Great ideas. Great plan.
Like the idea Ms. Aanenson of the beautiful space, the green space. Mr. Tucci, very reputable firm. I
think they’ll build high quality apartments. However just not this plan. We are used to medium density
over to the west of where we live. Obviously there’s a lot of apartments, or actually townhomes.
However the density here is just too much. The density transfer from the north side I do not believe is
valid and I think the study will show that. However using the 16 units per acre on the south side may be
valid so for me the density’s just too high. And the argument that our property values will be, stay the
same or increase, I can’t afford to take that risk. Most the houses in my neighborhood have reduced value
by about $200,000 in the past 7 years that we’ve lived there so for me it’s all about density. Possibly
reduce the density quite a bit and maybe you’ve got a solution but putting 30 units per acre, one it’s not
valid. And if you consider some of the other examples, 30 units per acre that were used, that is by
commercial so just on the north side of Byerly’s where you kind of expect going from retail or
commercial to very high density to medium density on. Here we’re far enough away from the city center
to go from extreme high density and then to medium density, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense so thank
you for your time. Appreciate it.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
John Crow: Mr. Mayor, council members, my name is John Crow. I live on 7663 Ridgeview Way in
Vasserman Ridge. You know I’m a capitalist like a lot of folks and I can appreciate what Mr. Tucci and
his group are trying to do here and I think, I want to take it down a little bit of a different course though in
and around the inappropriate size of this development and I think part of that has to do with the economic
drivers of Mr. Tucci and his group and if possible Mr. Mayor, I’m not sure can I ask him a question or is
that not?
Mayor Furlong: Well why don’t you address the council with your comments.
John Crow: Okay, my comments are this. That they’re going to make a lot of money, a lot of money
and you just do the basic math. A $30 million dollar building. Sorry, $30 million dollar building at an
average of $1,200 per month per unit is $3.2 million dollars a year. That’s an 11% rate of return. How
many of you want that kind of gross rate of return in this environment right now? A lot of you do so the
question is this, I’d welcome.
Mayor Furlong: Just wait, just wait, no. No. Finish your comments and address them to the council.
John Crow: That’s my comments. My comments are this. They are taking a distressed property at a
heck of a great value and then they’re going to maximize it to the greatest potential possible with this
transfer deal and they’re going to be laughing all the way to the bank and it’s fantastic.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Anything else?
John Crow: And you know what, no. I think that’s exactly what it is. And you know what, how do I get
to invest in that deal?
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Sir, thank you.
Paul Tucci: Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Paul Tucci with Oppidan.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Please respond to that. Thank you.
Paul Tucci: Yes, our monthly rentals are going to be between $1,000 and $1,500 and that’s gross. We
have to pay property taxes out of that. We have to pay maintenance. We have to pay water. We have to
pay for our staff people so we are not making an 11% return. If we were I would be investing $30 million
dollars myself.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you for the comments.
John Crow: Well no I just think that the point is this, when you have that size of a project, all I’m saying
is they’re still going to make a lot of money even if it’s a reduced amount so I’d like you to consider that
because the optics don’t fit. It’s huge. It’s misplaced. It doesn’t make any sense. So that’s another thing
to consider as you’re looking at it. Thank you very much.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
David Windschitl: Good evening. David Windschitl. 7620 Ridgeview Way. Vasserman Ridge
neighborhood. I want to go back to, I know that a lot of you didn’t have a chance to get the verbatim
from the Planning Commission so I’m just going to recap a couple things that I had mentioned during that
time.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
David Windschitl: I know back at the Galpin Crossing during the concept plan for that where we had a
12 unit proposal, at that time the Planning Commission apparently, I’m not going to quote that but I will
quote Ms. Tjornhom who had said that the 12 units at that time, she said I think there’s too many. I think
that they’re kind of crammed in there. I have to agree with the Planning Commission on that so if 12
units is too much for that parcel of land, the economics of moving 96 units off of that parcel of land to the
southern piece doesn’t add up to me. 96 units is a very generous, generous application of the land density
transfer. I appreciate the slide that’s up there right now because when I look at it I see the enormity of the
building. The other thing I appreciate out of tonight was the opportunity to watch the previous applicant
up here for a variance because I got to see some of the questions that were asked so with that there is one
thing in particular that Councilor McDonald had asked of that and that was has anybody from the
neighborhood complained. I know that we’re making our intentions known at least tonight in regards to
that and the other question that you had asked was, does the out building fit the neighborhood. I don’t
think this fits the neighborhood right now. I don’t think that this plan or this concept fits the
neighborhood. Now, I am starting to hear that you know some people are saying the scope of this is too
large and I know there’s many people that just say apartment building is not for me at that location so to
answer the question what would I like to see, the Stone Creek development of office condos I think is a
wonderful development that would fit in something you know something similar to here. If the demand
warrants it. I do believe a reduced, a greatly reduced number of apartment units could be something that
would be viable here. Just the number of the 225, the land density swap, it just does not work. When the
biggest apartment building in the city, I feel that going back to Councilor Laufenburger’s comments, is
this market rate and can it change? What direction do we have of that? Well being the biggest one in the
city it’s going to be the driver. I know when we all bought our houses the market was completely
different than what it is today. We’ve all impacted. If you would have asked me 10 years ago would I
ever sell my house for what I’d sell it for today, we’d say heck no. And that’s the same, there’s no
difference in rent from 10 years from now so to address the alternative side where we don’t think, or we
haven’t seen those things happen, well we didn’t see that before with housing either so with that I would
urge you to, we will respectfully wait for your direction as far as what we see out of here. Thank you.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Mike Muffenbier: Hi, my name is Mike Muffenbier and I’m at 7675 Ridgeview Way and I’m also in the
Vasserman neighborhood and my family and I we strongly oppose this project and you know one of the
great things about Chanhassen for us is something that we use on a real consistent basis is the trail
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system, which you know goes right along 78 Street. It’s just beautiful, right? We can get out there. We
can run. We can play. We can do all those things but one of the problems with the trail system is that
when you get to Galpin you have to cross traffic. Right, there’s no way around it. You have to cross
traffic so there’s 100, a little over 100 kids in the Vasserman neighborhood, right. They have to get past
that area. If you go 224 apartments at this location, you know just safely estimating I don’t know, 50 to
100 more kids right that are going to be located at that property, they too have to get on that trail system
plus all the adults that are going to use it for running or biking or whatever, and for the kids you know
they want to get over to Kwik Trip. They want to get over to CVS. They want to get out to Lake Ann. If
they want to go north to the park up along the ways of Longacres or to see their friends, they still have to
cross Galpin to get on the trail to go back up north again so it’s a huge issue as far as the trail traffic is
concerned. Another issue that hasn’t been discussed so far is, I’m lucky enough to have an elementary
school kid over at Bluff Creek right. I have two daughters. One that’s at Chaska Middle School West
and one’s at Chanhassen High School. Is the impact of 50 to 100 kids on the schools, right. Can Bluff
Creek handle you know whatever percentage of that would be elementary school kids? And can Chaska
Middle School West handle it? I would assume that they probably have a better ability to handle that than
Bluff Creek could handle it and Chanhassen High School but to put that density in, especially the
elementary school district where it’s at and how that impacts things and the bordering for that school
hasn’t been discussed but something I think that needs to be considered in the consideration of this
project.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Have we received any comments from the school district? From
School District 112 at all on this? I mean it’s a concept plan so.
Kate Aanenson: We’ve done this in every, pretty much every project that we’ve done and the.
Mayor Furlong: Done what?
Kate Aanenson: Looked at how many school children, that’s a common question that comes up in any
project.
Mayor Furlong: Sure, okay.
Kate Aanenson: The most amount of school children is created in a single family and if we move down
the hierarchy, townhouses and the like, then an apartment would create the least and that’s just because
typically you have that demographic that’s either the younger people or the older end of the spectrum.
Typically a single family would have the most. Now we know School District 112 looked at some
because people were moving towards townhouses that couldn’t get into that single family home, that they
found that some of that was ticking up but we haven’t looked at that data since then but that’s certainly
something that we could look at.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Brad Hodgins: Hi, my name’s Brad Hodgins. I live at 7633 Ridgeview Way in Vasserman Ridge and
I’ve got to thank the council for taking our comments. I have one point, I want to make it brief but people
have talked about a lot of crossing Galpin and even Highway 5 to a degree but if you look at that
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structure, there’s no way to get off that property without crossing a pretty busy road. Even West 78
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Street, you’ll notice it’s right there on a curve and cars come whipping around both directions of that
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curve and for kids and families to even get over West 78 Street to the trail, I could see being pretty
dangerous, especially with all the extra traffic and I’m presuming this right-in/right-out turn that’s going
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to be there, there’s going to be a lot of cars on West 78 Street as well making it even more dangerous
than Galpin and Highway 5. But my main point was, and I sent an email to the council earlier was you
know it was mentioned earlier that there aren’t any other spaces in Chanhassen for high density
residential. I would argue this is not a space for it either. It’s not zoned for it. What I mentioned in my
email earlier is it seems as though we’re trying to put a square peg into a round hole here. In order for
this project to work everything has to change. We have to change the zoning. We have to change the
density. We have to swap density. We have to get a variance for the height. This building and this
property is not zoned for this project either and everything has to change in order for this to work so that
was my main comment and thank you for your time.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Kim Daughton: Hi, Kim Daughton, 7688 Vasserman Trail. It’s late and I hope my kids are in bed and
thank you for sitting here Greg and Tammy. I hope you get your horse.
Tammy Falconer: Thank you.
Kim Daughton: I want a horse. I’m just listening to all the opposition here. There’s how many signs on
the petition? Like 600 signatures on a petition opposing this project. No one wants it. I know Kate
you’re for it. Mr. Tucci, I know you’re a businessman. You didn’t get to be Vice President because you
do want the people want but I’m just saying, can we all work together and maybe build something that we
would be proud of. Work together.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you.
Kate Aanenson: Mayor can I just make one comment because there were some comments after the last
Planning Commission. My role is just to provide you with a recommendation. I’ve had some, a lot of
comments that I’m working for the developer. My job is to work for you and to give you my professional
recommendation as I have for the last 20 years for the City.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Steve Ledbetter: Mr. Mayor and councilmen, my name is Steve Ledbetter. My wife and I moved from
Austin, Texas to 7756 Vasserman Place in August of this year so I think we have a different perspective.
We chose this community. We chose it for a reason. We came in and we looked at Edina. We looked at
Minnetonka. We looked at Eden Prairie and we chose Chanhassen. We chose Chanhassen because of the
kind of community that’s being built here and the reputation of the community. I will say we checked
with our realtor about zoning around the area. We’ve gone through this before in a past home. If I had
known this was going to be here, if this project would be built, we would have never moved, at least, we
probably, might have moved to Chanhassen. We certainly wouldn’t have moved to this neighborhood.
This does not fit. It’s like a sore thumb sticking out the way it is. I’m not against the development. I
think that it can even be an apartment development and will look great there but three stories, if you look
at the very corner of where the apartments are next to one of our neighbors around the corner, you know
you’ve got a couple hundred feet there and you go from a rambler style townhome looking up into a three
story apartment complex and tell me that won’t affect value. It’s, somebody mentioned earlier I think I’ll
mess your name up but we’ll go with your first name. Bethany earlier said common sense. I just ask you
to apply some common sense to this as you view it. I think Mr. Tucci asked for some direction on this. I
think we should give him some direction and I think the direction is we welcome his development. I
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think we should welcome something that fits in this area. This is not it. It’s not even close. Thank you
for your time.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. No, thank you.
Roger Remaley: Hello council, Roger Remaley. President of Walnut Grove Villa Townhouse
Association. 2128 Baneberry Way West. I think a lot of the stuff has been covered already as far as the
traffic and I think that some of these roads already have issues, whether this development goes forward or
not and they really need to be looked at from a safety perspective. I think what you’re hearing is from
everybody that lives here, Vasserman Ridge, Walnut Grove Villas, Longacres, so on and so forth, is that
this is just too big of a structure. It’s too high density. It innately doesn’t fit the neighborhood
aesthetically because of the height and the size of it, doesn’t fit the neighborhood. And it’s just not the
right site for this kind of a complex. Maybe a smaller apartment complex. Maybe an office zoned
complex as it is currently zoned. I could see a church. A nursery. A lot of things but this is just, it’s way
too big. It doesn’t fit the neighborhood. It will change the neighborhood and not for the better in my
opinion. Also I would like to say earlier when council asked about some other sites closer to the
downtown area, the response from city planning was that no, these sites are all zoned office. Well this
site is zoned office also so to say that those weren’t viable because they’re zoned office isn’t logical when
this one is also currently zoned for office. So with that being said you know I just, I think you really
should hear us and we just really feel this isn’t right for our neighborhoods. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Mark Magnuson: Hi, I’m Mark Magnuson, 7715 Vasserman Trail and I kind of join with everybody
behind me and in the next room. The overflow room in opposing this. And it’s you know, you’ve heard
it all pretty much but let me just say again it seems to me that this project is, you know as you can see
there, is kind of being shoehorned into a space that’s just not big enough for it. It was talked about the
buffers that exist for the CVS and Kwik Trip. Well there’s no buffer for the neighborhood and I think
that’s a problem. There’s no buffer between the single family homes and this project. At the last
Planning Commission meeting Mr. Tucci said that the, it’s almost 5 stories high when you take into the
account of the building and he said it’s 48 feet. Across the street, 200 feet which was mentioned from
single family homes so I think it is true that it kind of reminds me when I bought this really big screen TV
and brought it home and put it in there and it kind of tipped the whole room. It was just too big so I
brought it back, which made my wife happy by the way. On the traffic, we have 1,700 trips a day I guess
on Galpin and we’re going to virtually double that number. I just know that people, I mean people blast
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down Galpin and around 78 Street right now and they’re trying to beat the light frankly and I don’t think
what you’re going, what’s going to happen is people are going to look for, okay. How are we going to
redirect? We’re going to go up to Century Boulevard. I mean you know going to try to spread it out
some way and I think that the issue with pedestrian safety, especially children’s safety is a valid one.
Kids aren’t going to take the underpass. They’re going to take the shortcut. They’re going to try and beat
the, you know beat the light and we don’t want to lose another child like we did on 101 that was
approximate to another apartment building and that was what, last year? Got run over and now we’re
making some change. I don’t know what it is but supposedly we’re making a change so I think all those
are valid units. Valid points to me at least. The Lake Susan Apartments, it seems to me that that was a
bigger footprint and again there was some, the traffic flow is different than this because there’s, you’re
approximate to the single family development so everybody’s going to be smooshed in there trying to get
to Galpin and it’s going to be difficult. I also wonder about the, in the traffic study it was mentioned
about 10% of the units, about 1,500 a day would happen in the morning and somewhat less than that in
the evening. I’m just wondering, are these people, will these residents not work? I mean where, and who
do we think are going to rent these units? Is it really planned more for senior housing? And then what if
it doesn’t work, how do we then address the, you know filling this building, how are we going to do that?
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And finally the question of what I would prefer. I mean I think the idea of an office thing. Something
where it’s used during the day and it’s quiet at night would be preferable to something that’s, you know
it’s the biggest, it’s just going to tip the neighborhood and have a lot of people so, thank you very much.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Mr. Oehme, in terms of the traffic estimate numbers, what were
some of your assumptions there? What was the basis for your assumptions in terms of trips from an
office development or from an apartment?
Paul Oehme: Well for the apartment complex I think we’re just using in order of 6 trips per day per unit.
Mayor Furlong: And what’s the basis for 6 trips per day?
Paul Oehme: It’s ITE. The Institute of Transportation Engineering. They put out editions every so often
and they do studies for typical apartments and office complexes and they gather these types of trips and
based upon size and densities and areas of the country too, they base their estimates on those studies.
Mark Magnuson: Okay, thank you very much.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor, I have a question for Mr. Oehme.
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
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Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Oehme, what’s the speed limit on 78 Street?
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Paul Oehme: 78 Street, I think it’s.
Audience: 40.
Paul Oehme: 40.
Councilman Laufenburger: 40?
Paul Oehme: Right.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. How about Galpin?
Audience: 45.
Paul Oehme: It changes in some areas but mainly 45.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, thank you.
Dave Callister: Mayor and council members, Dave Callister, 7541 Windmill Drive. Got a few
comments. I’ll try to make my comments brief. I know I sent an email out earlier today but I think what
it all boils down to is simply following the Comprehensive Plan. Nobody is building retail these days.
Nobody’s building office. The only thing people are building are multi family units and there’s been a lot
of articles about when is the multi family bubble going to burst? They’re building lots of units. When the
credit crunch eases a little bit people are going to be buying homes so not only for this but other future
projects I think you need to be a little careful with that and not to change the standards just because of the
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hot commodity right now that everybody wants to get involved with. It seems like this project is driving
the zoning rather than the zoning driving the project so I think that’s a major concern. There were some
comments about housing and providing a diverse housing stock. I think we’ve got that and this map
clearly shows we have an adequate and diverse housing stock. I looked on, today there were townhomes
selling for $85,000 to $120,000. Rental townhomes in this general area renting from $950 to $1,100 so
there’s a lot of, there already are rentals in this area, both single family homes and townhomes and so I
think we’ve got that and if you look at this map you’ve got 650 multi family units right in here and to the
west over towards 41. There’s 650 units and I understand the comment about the Gorra property which is
over 100 acres to the east that’s zoned for medium and high density. I realize today it’s off the table but a
year from now or 5 years or 10 years we don’t know when that’s going to develop but there’s over 1,000
multi family units in that development. That could happen. May not happen tomorrow but I think if
you’re making a decision for the short term, then you’d be looking at this because this is a hard piece to
develop and it’s gone through a lot but if you’re looking for long term there is a lot of land. There’s over
100 acres half a mile to the east on the frontage road that’s available, will be available. Not now but it
will be available and again this is a 20 year plan. Not something we have to do now just because the
market is saying this is the thing to build so I think those are some important considerations. I know this
has been a difficult piece of property. Done the research back in ’87, ’88, ’93, 90, well ’93, 2003, 2006.
There’s a lot of things going on. Nuisance complaints. Wetland fillings. Multiple requests for changing
zoning and comp plans and that sort of thing so I understand that there’s a lot of frustration on this piece
of property but I also know that the market will correct itself. I don’t know when that will be but there
will be a demand for office at some point. This is a good site. It’s visible. It’s close to the metro area.
It’s got good transportation routes and so forth so I would encourage just some patience when looking at
this particular site and let the market dictate and I would say let’s stick to the Comprehensive Plan.
Thank you.
Jane Meyer: My name’s Jane Meyer and I don’t live anywhere near this complex proposal.
Mayor Furlong: What is your address ma’am?
Jane Meyer: 6911 Lorelei Lane in Eden Prairie.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Welcome.
Jane Meyer: Okay, thanks. I am a realtor. My Remax office is in downtown Chanhassen and I sell over
20 some years of selling real estate all over the Twin Cities and as any good realtor will tell their client,
buyer or seller, location, location, location but it’s what’s around that location. When you come into an
area you look at that and I’m going to be honest to people and tell them, good resale. Bad resale. And
you talked about the power lines over in Dell or off on Pioneer Trail, I have had opportunities to sell in
that area and if my clients ask my truthful opinion I have turned them down and said nope. Uh-uh. You
talk about, what is it 224 units. One car per unit. Probably two. Two trips a day. Is that 1,000 cars on
that little area? And he is right, the market is on it’s way back. Pretty soon, in the future, the rentals will
be down, houses will be up. They can build their complex in a little better area. Listen to your residents.
What they want in that area. Yep, the rental will eventually be on the lower end again. I just think the
value of these houses around will definitely go down. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Julie Sibley: Hi, my name is Julie Sibley and I’m from 7683 Vasserman Trail and I just have nothing
new to add as far as points. We’ve heard such good, articulately spoken, legal valid reasons for this
project not to go through as planned but what I guess we’re all wondering is how many names that it
takes for you to hear our voice and it seems like we’ve had you know 500 plus names put on petitions to
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prevent this from progressing further. We’ve come to several different meetings to tell you how we feel
as a community. I haven’t seen you know a rivalry of opinions as we stand up here. It’s pretty
unanimous in what you hear so I think that in itself should show you that as people living in that area
there’s something self evident that we see about this project and why it doesn’t fit in the area so I just
wanted to register my opinion and once again that I do not believe this should go through and I just hope
that you would come up with a number. How many names does it take until you feel like you should
represent the feelings of the community? The people of Chanhassen who are trying to speak to you.
Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Cathy Meyer: Hi, my name is Cathy Meyer. I live at 7662 Ridgeview Way. Also in Vasserman
community. Thank you Mr. Mayor and council members for letting us speak today. I know I was one of
the people that specifically requested the open forum and appreciate your patience and willingness to
listen to, it’s actually 616 signatures as of this evening on the petition and I know you hear almost every
one of those as long as, as well as with numerous phone calls and emails. So I just have a couple things
to add in listening today and sitting through the meeting hosted by Mr. Tucci and the Planning
Commission last week. You know we talked about today something new for me was that we’re meeting
our density goals on housing and also that it’s going to take 2 years to fill this apartment complex. A
year to build it and two years to fill it so as one of the gentleman prior to me said, you know essentially
what’s the rush to build it today? And as another gentleman said, to put the square peg in a round hole.
The other thing I would ask, and I had shared this before is that I find this a challenging or challenging
location to live in. Councilman Laufenburger you asked about Lake Susan. I actually rented there last
year during a remodel. The apartments are larger and they’re less expensive and they’re still market rate.
They have a pool. They have access to the lake and they have easy access to under the street. I think
there are other lots that in the future will potentially be available that are equally distant or closer to
downtown. Closer to 212 which is becoming more of a main artery as well as possibly a future public
transportation. They’re either already designated as PUD’s or could more suitably be transferred from
office to PUD and offer more green space and suitable living for those who are going to reside in those
apartments in the future. And those are my comments. May I just voice somebody who’s home with a
sick child, can I record her for the record? Is that possible?
Mayor Furlong: Just read a statement?
Cathy Meyer: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Sure.
Cathy Meyer: Okay. So on behalf of.
Mayor Furlong: Was it, let me ask you, was it an email that was sent out already?
Cathy Meyer: She already got an email sent out, yeah so should I just leave it?
Mayor Furlong: Okay, because we’ve seen the emails so.
Cathy Meyer: Then she’s on record.
Mayor Furlong: Yes. She’s on record already.
Cathy Meyer: Thank you.
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Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anyone else?
Keith Deans: Hi, my name is Keith Deans. I live in Vasserman Ridge. I live at 7651 Ridgeview Way.
One of the things that attracted my wife and our family was the family dynamic of Chanhassen. I think
there’s a reason why there is 2% vacancy in this particular area and that’s because the people like it that
way and one of the things that caught me, or one of the comments that was made by Mr. Tucci was that
our vacancy rates at 2% were very similar to New Haven, Connecticut and Manhattan. I didn’t move to
Chanhassen for it become New Haven, Connecticut or Manhattan. I want to continue to have the same
family values. The same family neighborhood and the same type of dynamic that Chanhassen has offered
since we moved here. And if you haven’t guessed by my comment I’m in agreement with the rest of the
room that lives in this community that we want to retain the same type of environment that we have here.
I’m opposed to having this development built here. Again from a structural standpoint it doesn’t fit.
Doesn’t fit with anything in our neighborhood so again I want to continue to maintain the same type of
comp plan that the city has moved forward with. Again I want to continue to live in this type of
environment that Chanhassen has offered since we moved here. That’s my comment.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. If I could ask you a question, just so I understand. You were talking about
family values. How do you differentiate the family values from a Comprehensive Plan land use
standpoint between different types of residences? Single family home or medium density, apartment.
Keith Deans: Well I don’t know that you can equate the two of those in all honesty. I think the family
values I can only speak for the dynamic that we have within Vasserman Ridge.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Keith Deans: And it is a single family community with both townhomes that surround us. One of the
things that I guess I enjoy is that we have both families with young children, families with older children,
and also those that don’t have children in our neighborhood which adds to the diversity of the
neighborhood and I just, I think the overall sense of community that has built the Chanhassen, or I should
say the Vasserman Ridge neighborhood that we came to love and why we moved there.
Mayor Furlong: And so do you not see those with those who live in an apartment or do you see that that
would change?
Keith Deans: Well in the immediate, and again you can correct me if I’m wrong but in the immediate
area there are townhomes. Not necessarily apartments that are surrounding us so I can only equate what
we currently have with the townhomes and the single family community, that was what I want, that’s
what I’d like to see us maintain.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you.
Lance Erickson: Good evening. Thank you for letting us speak tonight. We appreciate it very much.
Mayor Furlong: You’re welcome.
Lance Erickson: My name is Lance Erickson and I live at 7735 Vasserman Trail so I’m just about you
know 50 yards from the project that’s proposed and of course in addition, I mean all of the items that
you’ve heard tonight, density and traffic, traffic probably I think may be more serious not because of just
the additional trips per day that this project is going to create but because of the location right at the stop
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sign at Galpin and West 78. These people are coming out of the building, they’re going to go 30 yards
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
and they’re going to be at a stop sign. If they go the other way to Burger King, there’s going to be a line
up from that project all the way up there but it’s going to be a popular road to be traveling with all that
additional traffic. So everybody’s kind of covered all of the comments tonight so we don’t need to go
there but I just, I had a question and it relates to the Comprehensive Plan which is in place that where you
know you’ve all put a lot of effort into this and Chanhassen gosh, ranked one of the best cities in America
and number one just a couple years ago and it’s because of the effort of all of you on the council and the
Planning Commission and everybody here in Chanhassen that’s worked so hard to make this a desirable
place and I really think you need to look long and hard about making a zoning change against that
Comprehensive Plan that changes what you thought not too long ago was your perfect vision. And in
respect to that, do you actually have to go to the Metropolitan, this is a question. Do you have to go to the
Met Council to get this approved if you decided to move forward?
Mayor Furlong: Ms. Aanenson, could you describe the process?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, that’s correct. Land use amendments have to be approved by the Met Council.
We also send out comments, jurisdictional comments to the surrounding communities also to let them
know of any changes in the Comprehensive Plan.
Lance Erickson: So if it did move forward in some manner, people would be notified of that?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. I mean this is just concept. If I may Mayor just explain the process.
Mayor Furlong: Please.
Kate Aanenson: So if whatever would come forward would have to go through another process. A traffic
study. More detailed analysis. We’d provide some of the questions regarding schools and we’d send out
comments. It’s called jurisdictional review so we’d hear again from MnDOT and the County, the
surrounding communities. In addition we’d send all that up to the Metropolitan Council for a Land Use
Amendment. We actually had an amendment on the Comprehensive Plan tonight on consent agenda
regarding a classification of a roadway. We get those frequently from our surrounding communities.
Shakopee, if they do a land use amendment so it happens.
Lance Erickson: So we would get notified of it.
Kate Aanenson: You would be notified because if a project was to come forward, you wouldn’t get
notified of the land use amendment but as a part of the application when it went to the Planning
Commission so there would be another public hearing.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, Ms. Aanenson, maybe explain the process now after, regardless of, the outcome of
tonight will be more comments and observations from the council.
Kate Aanenson: Correct, correct.
Mayor Furlong: So what happens after that?
Kate Aanenson: Then the developer would decide based on those comments whether or not they chose to
proceed.
Lance Erickson: Okay, okay.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Kate Aanenson: And they could choose to proceed whether or not they you know, whatever those
comments are. Then we would come back through. Then we would have another public hearing. As a
part of that public hearing.
Mayor Furlong: If they were to proceed, they’d put together a lot of these.
Kate Aanenson: Correct, all these things. A traffic study.
Mayor Furlong: Address a lot of these questions.
Kate Aanenson: Yep, and then we’d have another public hearing. Review all that in even more detail.
Lance Erickson: Alright.
Kate Aanenson: And then the amendment would take place then. And the project couldn’t go forward
until that amendment took place.
Lance Erickson: Okay. Just wanted to ask that question. And one final point to the young lady’s
question about what would you like to see on the property? Gosh, the reputation of the developer here is
just outstanding on all the work they do, if they were to put their building on that property it’d probably
make a nice office environment.
Mayor Furlong: Anyone else that would like to comment? Please.
Jeff Weyandt: Thank you. My name’s Jeff Weyandt. I live at 7626 Ridgeview Way over in Vasserman
and I appreciate the opportunity to talk. I guess looking through the whole stack of paper related to this
project, in reading the analysis of what we’ve got for this project, we’re looking at all sorts of different
estimates. Estimates of traffic. Estimates of this. Estimates of that and the only thing we know about
estimates is they’re always wrong, okay. And so you’re looking at it and you’re saying oh, this isn’t
going to effect your traffic and if it does you know we’ll take care of it. Well you know, that’s not what
we’re looking for. We’re a community and when Keith came, you know came up here and talked about
what we moved here for, and most of us moved here from other cities. We had experience. We moved
here for a reason and we picked this community and it was because of the set up and because of the plan
that you as the City have put in place. We were impressed with it. We liked it and everything we ever
heard about it, we said this is what we’re looking for. This is where we want to live. Okay and so now
we’re saying what will we trade? What’s our trade off? What are we willing to trade? We’re willing to
trade some green space for a 53 foot building. Okay. I don’t care if you plant a bunch of 20 foot trees in
front of it, it’s still a 53 foot building and it’s behind my house. Okay. It just changed my whole
neighborhood. Adding 224 units of people, cars and everything that comes with them just changed my
whole neighborhood. Okay. And maybe certain people think that’s not a big deal but it is to me, okay.
And it is to all the other people in this room who came here to voice our opinion tonight and sent you all
those emails. Okay. We are the people of Chanhassen. Alright and we believe that the City should
represent what we want, not just you know help someone make some money, alright. And I’m not
accusing you of that. The City needs to make money. We need taxes. We’ve got to pay for things.
Okay, and your view of how to do that is why we elected you. Okay and my only point is, represent what
the city wants and what the people who moved to that city want. That’s a view that should count. I know
it’s been said but that’s the most important thing here. What are you willing to trade off in order to get
this? That’s it.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
Stacy Beno: Hi, I’m Stacy Beno and I live at 7563 Ridgeview Point in Vasserman Ridge and what
nobody’s pointing out either, and everybody has the traffic thing but there’s also, if I can point. There’s
also a blind spot to the left. Right where that arrow is. There’s also a blind spot if you’re coming out of
the neighborhood and taking a right. You cannot see at all and what’s not shown is the other exit to the
neighborhood of Vasserman Ridge. If you’re taking a left, you can’t see around that. It’s a big hill.
People do come flying around those corners and so that part of the traffic isn’t being addressed either an I
just wanted to say that and I completely oppose the monstrosity of an apartment complex that’s going in
there.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Anyone else? And we’ll probably need to finish this up with one or
two more comments.
Gerry Wolfe: Hi, I’m Gerry Wolfe. I live at 7755 Vasserman Trail. I probably more than anyone else
will be affected by this because I am in the building that is on immediately inside the entrance. Not on
that side. I’m on the other side. No, on that building you first pointed to but I’m on the north side of that
building. So my next door neighbor will probably hit it even more but I sit and look out at that property
all the time. It’s gorgeous today but just, it’s going to be really close. I’m going to, right now at night
when cars come around the corner off of Galpin, we get headlights into our house all the time. Into our
bedroom. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like with cars coming home at 11:00, 12:00, 1:00 in the
morning on Friday’s and Saturday nights from parties and what have you and when we’re trying to sleep
with all these lights coming into our bedroom. There’s nothing been said about the right-in/right-out turn
on the east side of the parking lot there. That is going to be another entrance, just like the U turn that
takes place on Galpin when you come out of Kwik Trip. They can put a pork chop in there, whatever
they call it, and people are going to make a U turn around to get into that entrance when they come off of
Galpin, and the vast majority of people are going to come off of Galpin. I wouldn’t go all the way down
to the other entrance, which is going to be right across from my property to park in the east parking
garage of that building. There was talk about the electric lines. When I sit on my deck and look out, the
power lines are about at the height of those air vents off the back of my property and about 50 feet away
from my deck so I know if I’m sitting on my deck and I have a walkout but I’m on the same level as the
ground level of the property we’re talking about. People on the second and third floor are going to be
looking right at those power lines, right out their windows. The other thing I wanted to mention is the
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crosswalks at Galpin and 78. They are on the north side of Galpin, or of 78 Street. There is no
crosswalk from the south side across Galpin to the Kwik Trip site so if anybody in that apartment
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complex is going to have to cross 78 Street to the north side and then cross Galpin to the east side and
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then cross 78 again to get to the Kwik Trip and to CVS. And the school or whatever, yep. So that’s all I
have to say. You’ve got the rest of my epistle in here.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? No, alright. Thank you. I guess at this
point, Mr. Tucci any follow up comments or Ms. Aanenson with regard to the comments made. No?
Okay. Alright, thank you everybody. We appreciate your comments and as I said earlier the comments
that people provided to us. Let’s at this point then bring it back to council for any follow up questions or
first of all.
Councilman Laufenburger: I have just a question if I can?
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: Kate, what’s the current city’s population?
Kate Aanenson: 24,000 approximately.
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Councilman Laufenburger: And according to the Comprehensive Plan, what is the anticipated population
of the city in say 2030?
Kate Aanenson: 2030, I guess I can give you the ultimate population.
Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah, what’s the capacity?
Kate Aanenson: We’ll work with capacity, we felt we’d be at 2030 but we’ve pushed that out further
because development slowed down. 35,000-40,000.
Councilman Laufenburger: 35,000 to 40,000. Okay. So there’s going to be some growth in Chanhassen.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: How about directly to our east, to Eden Prairie? Are they going to see any
growth?
Kate Aanenson: They do have some residential going on right now but as far as what’s happening in
Minnetonka and Eden Prairie, most of their residential is pretty much built out.
Councilman Laufenburger: How about Victoria and Chaska, are they going to see any development?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, they have quite a bit of development available, yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: Alright, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? If not, comments. Thoughts. Observations.
Mr. Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: I have some comments if I can.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman Laufenburger: I just would ask that the council members as well as the audience here, and
also at home just please hear my full comments because there may be some reaction to some of the things
that I say but I just would ask that you would just listen to everything that I say. First of all to those
people who are here tonight and approached the lectern and spoke, my compliments to you. I know that it
takes a lot to stand up in front of that microphone and speak so to those of you that did I admire your
energy, your passion and also your willingness to do that. Also I want to acknowledge and recognize the
organizational efforts to mobilize the passion of the citizens concerned about the implications of this
development and I would say the vast majority of these were as earlier described, well founded, well
written, well crafted. In some cases the pleas were sounding like don’t move my cheese, and I get that.
It’s happened to me and my wife at least 3 times in our various neighborhoods that we’ve lived in. I will
say this though, I am not concerned about the apartments attracting an undesirable element, as some have
suggested. On the contrary, having lived in an apartment myself I think the apartments can help meet the
goals of the Comprehensive Plan. They bring value to the community. They bring patrons to our local
businesses. They bring future leaders to our civic organizations. They’re another valuable thread in the
tapestry that we call Chanhassen and they are also future homeowners in this city. I just would ask
rhetorically how many have ever lived in an apartment and now live in a single family home. I’m one of
those. Mr. Erickson commented about perfect vision. I don’t think there’s such a thing as perfect vision.
I think that one of the things that I was stirred to do as a result of the tremendous input I got from the city,
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or the citizens and I listened to every one of them. Responded to many of them. I reviewed the
Comprehensive Plan again and I was drawn to the context of the plan and the goals that the plan is
designed to meet, and I just want to share some of these. Our community development department and
economic development director work with businesses and community officials to streamline the
development review process to ensure smooth and well planned developments that both the City and
businesses will be proud of now and into the future. So to the question why are we even looking at this?
Because we are obligated to look at and review developments just like this. A Comprehensive Plan is
designed to serve as a guide for the local decision making process. This is absolutely true. And in
addition the Comprehensive Plan is designed, and I’m quoting from the plan document, it’s designed to
be a flexible tool which can be adapted to new policies to attain stated goals. Another goal. The City
provides a residential environment which accommodates diverse income levels and housing styles and
preferences, single family detached housing and related neighborhoods will however continue to be the
dominate land use and housing type, and I think the permits that have been drawn in the last 2 years
clearly reinforce that, correct Kate? Okay. Land Use Plan. The Plan should seek to establish sufficient
land to provide for a full range of housing opportunities. Again I’m quoting from the Comprehensive
Plan. Housing goals, and some of these are in the planning document that Ms. Aanenson prepared.
Provide housing opportunities for all residents consistent with the identified community goals. Balanced
housing supply with housing available for people of all income levels. Accommodation of all racial and
ethnic groups in the purchase, sale, rental and location of housing within the community. A variety of
housing types for all people in all stages of life cycle. A community of well maintained housing and
neighborhoods, including ownership and rental housing. Housing development methods such as PUD’s,
cluster developments and innovative site plans and building types should be encouraged to help conserve
energy and resources for housing. In fact this is one of the 9 criteria that is applied to a concept PUD as
stipulated in our ordinances, is that right Kate?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilman Laufenburger: The City should continue to ensure non-discrimination in the sale and rental
of housing units. Hear me clearly. While density is given by a range in the Comprehensive Plan the City
shall encourage development at the upper end of the density range. The City will promote the integration
of life cycle housing opportunities throughout the community. Affordable and subsidized housing should
not be overly concentrated in one area of the city. Now, as to my responsibility as your council member,
yes. I do have to listen to the citizens. In fact I made a commitment when I joined the council that I
would have an attentive ear, a responsive voice, and a decisive leadership as a servant leader. I received
over 450 emails, some of those that Cathy Meyer referred to. The petition. I received every one of those
so thank you. And I was able to respond to about 90 of those and I thank you all for those comments, but
I have an obligation to all citizens, even those that may not be directly impacted by this project. Of this I
can guarantee you, and I’ve just finishing my second year on the council, I can guarantee you that
virtually every decision that we make at this council, any decision, any vote will satisfy some and
disappoint others. So regarding this project Mr. Mayor, this concept PUD, I’m inclined to not approve it
as presented. However, I believe there is a way that it could move forward to the next step. First of all I
like preserving the north parcel and even improving it would be worthwhile. I absolutely endorse a more
complete traffic study. There must be a chance, there must be a change to the U turn from which going
from northbound on Galpin to southbound on Galpin. That has got to change regardless of what we do
here. So Mr. Mayor, I could support the development with less than a full density transfer. I’m thinking
if the, if no density transfer results in 128 units, am I correct on that Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, again that’s taking the gross, 8 times 16.
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Councilman Laufenburger: 8 times 16, 128. I could support even a little bit more than that, taking a
portion of the density from the north parcel but I could not support 224 units. I think that’s too many.
Thank you Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other comments. Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I really appreciate everyone coming tonight and articulating your concerns. I
know all of you put a lot of time and effort into this project and into the development of this project and I
really appreciate all that you’ve put forth. I personally have concerns with the density. 224 units is a
significant number and I’m not sure this is a good fit. I have nothing against apartment living because I
too have lived in apartments. If we use the property as guided for office and retail, particularly for retail,
I feel it would serve more of an advantage in terms of increasing our tax base. I also have some concerns
about the power lines that everyone has mentioned here this evening. I’m not sure this is the right
location. We do need to encourage development, as Councilman Laufenburger alluded to but I do not
believe that this project is a good fit as it’s been presented here this evening. That’s all I have.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom, thoughts.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have to say I’ve been on the council for 8 years and I think this is probably
one of the biggest issues that I’ve deal with. On the Planning Commission there were a lot of issues
where the rooms were packed but I think this is probably one of the spirited community involved
movements and so I think these kind of conversations usually end up with a good impact or a good results
so I think we’re on the right track. You know just being here tonight and discussing this. I just recently
won my election and I was at one of my debates and a question from the audience was, what makes a
good council person and not having time to really think about that I had to kind of you know think well
wow, what does make a good council person. And you know to me it came with, I had 3 answers which I
had to provide which was communication, being a good listener, and then being able to make tough
choices and I think I’m going to have to exercise all three of those concepts tonight because there was a
lot of communication. Over 600 emails and I appreciated all of them. That really is a red flag to me that
there is a real passion. There’s a real love for your neighborhood and for what happens to Chanhassen.
Being a good listener, I think tonight it was a wonderful opportunity to be a good listener. I enjoyed
listening to all, I think it was almost 25 people that spoke. All with good points and passionate views.
And then you know the third element is making tough choices and I have to say that I think that this
parcel of land has been troubled for a long time. It would have been nice if we could have had the
development, someone quoted me on when I was I think on the Planning Commission but that didn’t
happen. There’s been, it seems like every development that comes through, every opportunity falls
through and it’s unfortunate and you know so I’d love to see this piece of land being successful and I
think tonight’s perhaps just the first step because I believe that, I hope that we could probably work with
the developer and come up with something on a smaller scale that looks more residential and feels more
residential and at the same time work with residents on traffic concerns, and especially when it comes to
the offender that I am when it comes to making U turns at CVS. Getting back on Highway 5 you know.
That’s even a good positive outcome that will come from this tonight so I would encourage the developer,
I would welcome them but I think it needs to be something that every, that fits with this parcel of land and
compliments not only the neighborhood but our town. So thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Thank you. I guess first of all what I’ll say is I was on the Planning
Commission when this original piece came through so I’ve already been through all of this and one of the
things when I was on the Planning Commission I did get a lot of emails concerning staff. I got a lot of
emails and comments that have been made today and I have to say the same thing I said when I was on
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the Planning Commission and I was the Chairman of that commission. The staff does an excellent job.
They work for you. Their job is not to necessarily line up for developer or for the residents. Their job is
to provide information to the Planning Commission and to the City Council. From there it is up to those
individuals to make decisions so I received a lot of emails and I did receive a lot of emails and I did
answer some. In fact I was late tonight because I was answering someone who had called in. I was more
than willing to talk to a number of you. In fact I even tried to make some direct arrangements to meet
with people one on one. What I found is that there are a lot of misconceptions about what’s going on
here. This goes back to the days of when Walmart came through. I had a lot of concerns about the way
that that was handled and that was voiced by the council itself. That was rushed through and what had
happened was we were not given an opportunity to I think make a decision based upon facts. We never
received anything about traffic studies. We did all kinds of things about what they needed to do as far as
change. They never had the opportunity to come back because of the way things were structured at that
time so we have changed the process. I got a lot of comments about the Planning Commission did not do
their job. Yes, they did their job. They did an excellent job. Yes they did. Their position was to send
information up to this council. Was to send all of your comments up to this council. Was to tell us, the
council, what everyone felt. I watched that meeting on TV so I saw everybody come up to the podium.
I’ve listened to everyone. This is not an easy decision. I go back to before, it’s been about 4 years ago.
Kate and I were on a study committee that was set up by the Carver County Development Agency and at
that point there were a number of businesses, schools, governmental agencies, a lot of people were
involved in that and what we were looking at were housing studies, not just within Chanhassen but within
Carver County and what was coming out of all this from businesses, from the schools, from everybody
was that the housing stock that is within this county is not sufficient to staff the entry level positions that
this county has to offer and that is a big disadvantage to this county when you do not have workers that
live close by. You all are not the target candidates for becoming school teachers. You’re not the target
candidates for becoming policemen. Those are the people that we need within this infrastructure to
support this city and to make it work the way you all believe it works. Without those things we don’t
have a city. We have chaos so those were things that came out of that study. Why it never advanced was
because that’s when the housing bubble hit and suddenly everything changed. The world got turned
upside down but the results of that and the results of what was discussed at those committee meetings has
not changed. We do need housing and this housing, it’s not for some strangers. It’s for your children.
It’s for your parents. It’s for people that want to come back into this neighborhood and live and work
here and they don’t have that opportunity because right now we are geared more toward high end
residential houses and that’s not what entry level people need and entry level is defined as people making
anywhere between $40,000 to $60,000 a year so part of our obligation, and Councilman Laufenburger
read it quite well that one of the things that we have to do as council members is to look at what can we
do to help development within this city to meet the long range goals and plans. I’ve heard what
everybody has said. I share your concerns about traffic. About the density. About what’s going to
happen to the trails and about the amenities. I mean all of those are things that are impacted. What I’m
trying to get at and what I’ve explained to a lot of people on the phone and they seem to understand that
after we have a conversation about it is that there is a larger picture here and one of the things that we
need as council people is, does this fit within the larger picture? And today I can’t tell you if it does or
doesn’t because I need that traffic study. I need to know what is the impact of putting that kind of
development on that corner. You know can those roads support that? One of the ladies brought up
Galpin going north to 7. That was the first time I had heard that but yeah, she’s got a viable point that
that is a shortcut to 7 and that is a possibility but how many people are going to do it? I mean today we
don’t know so hopefully that’s something that the study would be able to tell us is, you know what can
that intersection and that infrastructure support? We need those answers because even if this doesn’t go
forward something else is and we need to know from a city’s perspective what do we have to pay for to
fix up that corner so we need answers to that. I agree with density also that eh, it seems a little high but I
need some more information there and I think we can work with the developer because I’m sure you
know he’s got some density to give up on there. The trails, I did talk to Todd Hoffman who is in charge
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of park and trails and I asked about that underpass because that was brought up last week and yes, when it
first snows or when it first floods it’s not available but he said for the most part that is a priority to clean
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that out and make sure that it’s usable. I’m concerned about people crossing Galpin at West 78. I think
somebody described it, you go north. You go east. You go south. That doesn’t make any sense at all so
something’s got to come up with there to address that issue. I would be in support of this project but it’s
got too many questions and at this point the only way I’m going to get answers to that is it needs to move
forward so I’m more or less in favor of it moving forward. That doesn’t mean I’m in favor of the project.
All it means is I’m trying to do our due diligence and I think that you know before we can actually turn
something down you need to have some answers. I can bring back one more thing from the days when I
was on the Planning Commission. Down at Galpin Avenue and Lyman there was a development that was
put in there. We heard the same kind of arguments about it was going to be dangerous for children. It
was going to increase traffic and at that point it was semi’s. What everybody was saying was we’re going
to have all these trucks down there. We’re going to just, it’s going to be, you won’t be able to get in and
out of there because of all the truck traffic. Well we worked through all that. We got it working. There
is no truck traffic. No one’s been killed down there. The traffic does not get backed up. Everything has
worked the way that the developer said it would because they were willing to work with us. As long as
the developer is willing to work with the City we can generally work through anything but I think
everybody needs to be given an opportunity to work with people before we turn something down. There
was a lot of things, as was pointed out, this city’s going to grow. I heard a lot of comments about, we like
it the way it is. Let’s just leave it that way. Can’t do that folks. What we have is some very attractive
land that people want to get at and they’re going to come in and they’re going to build on it. Whether it’s
apartments, businesses, whatever it’s going to happen. Land will be developed and the question, and
you’re right to ask the question of us, what’s going to go on that land and that’s a question that we need to
look at and make a determination of what goes on that land and right now we have a project that’s been
presented to us. We need some more answers before we can actually do something to say whether it’s
viable or not so that’s the only reason why I would be in favor of this going forward is, I think it needs
more work but you know that’s why we changed this process is so we can get answers and we can make
good decisions. At some point, as Kate and everybody said, this is going to come back before the council
and we’re going to have to justify whatever decision we make at that time so what I would ask is that you
hold your fire until that point and if we can’t answer the questions that you posed tonight then yeah, I’ll
take whatever hits you want to you know send my way but I think that what you elected me for, and I got
a lot of things and I thank everybody who supported me but I have to tell you, as I said during the
campaign, no one is going to buy my vote which is why I ran the way I did. As an independent. I would
not take any party support. I will not be accountable to anyone. I will do what’s best for everyone and if
I can’t explain that, then you know I probably shouldn’t have been elected but that’s what I promised to
do to everyone and like I say, I appreciate the votes but please don’t tell me you voted for me and expect
me to now vote the way you want me to because you’re only one person out of 23,000 within this city and
I have to answer to everybody else so with that I’m done.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, okay. Thank you everyone tonight and my first comment will be to thank all of
you for putting up with my rough voice and the occasional sucking on a cough drop my, but I want to
extend my thanks as well to all the residents that spoke here tonight. As Councilman Laufenburger said,
it’s not easy to stand up at a microphone in front of people with a television cameras on and sometimes I
think we get used to it because we do it but I know it’s not easy. I’ve been in that place before and, but
you all did very well. For those who spoke at the Planning Commission as well, we thank you for that
and I also want to thank Mr. Tucci and the Planning Commissioners and the staff. One of the aspects of
this process, this concept PUD, as I understand it, is when somebody has an idea that they want to get
people’s thoughts on. If there was a, we heard comments tonight about the Comprehensive Plan and I
agree, there is no perfect vision especially when government’s creating a big document like the
Comprehensive Plan. Sorry Kate but there is no perfect vision in that. It’s the collective thought of many
people, property owners, business owners, others. In terms of what’s a plan, what do we see as the likely,
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as a possible outcome, and yes we try to stick to that as much as we can but the whole idea here is, we
also want to, as that plan, as that Comprehensive Plan is developed with the input and the thoughts and
comments and the goals and objectives of the property owners, especially for those undeveloped
properties, what do they want to do with it? That plays significant weight in developing the plan and the
things that this council does. This property has had a long list of, which was in the report, a long list of
times in front of a city council. I participated in a few of those and whether it’s this property or other
properties or even the Comprehensive Plan, I think one of the goals and objectives of the council is to try
to accommodate where we can a property owner’s desire to use or develop their property. I appreciate
that with my home and I know everybody else appreciates that with their property as well so when a
property owner wants to do something with their property that isn’t absolutely allowed by all the
Comprehensive Plan and the ordinances, I mean if somebody was following the Comprehensive Plan they
wouldn’t have to go through this process. They could just submit a proposal and it would come through.
It would still go through the Planning Commission and the council but it wouldn’t go through this concept
idea so really the whole purpose here is to lay something out. Lay an alternative out for the council and
for the residents and the businesses to take a look at and see what are the good points of it, what are the
bad points of it and for people to weigh in. Kate, with this new process I really think it gave an
opportunity for people to weigh in. We received plenty of comments. Many with passion throughout in
terms of what they thought, and in that, every email, every phone call, every document, even with the
single line comments that came off of the electronic petition, I tried to read the reasons why. I was
always looking for the why. What were the reasons? And in many cases there were some very valid
reasons that had to be considered. Some I disagreed with but the ones that kept coming up over and over
again were traffic concerns. Safety concerns. Environmental issues. Concern about the environment.
And then just planning. Again working with things like the density transfer and the alternative
developments and such like that so I think as we as a council are trying to give comments and direction to
the developer, these are the things that seem to be with most of the concerns raised, even tonight,
probably fall into one of those categories as well and so I think you know as I look at, from a land use
standpoint, and a couple people mentioned it tonight, they said this development doesn’t work but
apartments might be an alternative. Or the office might be an alternative or such like that and so I think
there is, I find wisdom in those types of comments in that they are, they’re not just say no. Yes or no but
they’re also looking at what are the attributes. What are the good parts of the proposal? And what are the
problems? And with the problems let’s see, maybe they’re addressable. Maybe they’re not. One of the
biggest issues that I’ve heard time and again, and I would agree is the number of units are too many for
this development. I think that’s, that is a statement clearly that I can agree with and, or other issues
involved, I think in terms of defining how many units might work for the apartment, and I don’t know if
this, what level this would work for the city. Whether it would work for the developer or not and people
talked about money and economic return, that’s really not our concern. Our concern is are we developing
or approving developments that are good developments that will enhance our overall community but I
think issues of traffic and density are clearly some of the main issues so before my voice completely gives
out, I guess I’ll suggest some aspects here. I think when we consider the alternatives, there are some nice
attributes of this concept in front of us. Keeping the northern parcel undeveloped I think has a very
positive aspect, especially for those who were concerned about environment and Bluff Creek and the
stormwater runoff. That’s a benefit. Now is there a reasonable alternative that would allow 96 units to be
built on the northern parcel? I don’t know. I’d have to see that. It sounds to me like that’s too much.
Given the wetland there and the other aspect but having, transferring units from the northern piece to the
southern piece I think makes sense. I think with the, from a density standpoint, and I think that’s one
thing that probably needs to be looked at is that when we try to figure out an appropriate amount of
density transfer, we have to look at a reasonable development alternative on the northern piece. In terms
of what might be an alternative there. There is a wetland. Mr. Tucci mentioned they would plan to
mitigate that. That’s their choice from an economic standpoint but I think the staff report addresses that
and there may be some additional benefits to that. I think the other aspect that I heard is traffic. We
heard that time and again. I think the traffic study makes sense and I think in terms of looking at not just
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Chanhassen City Council – December 10, 2012
the current traffic but projected traffic and movements as well and we do have significant undeveloped
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properties to the east on West 78, to the north on Galpin and this development as well and there may be
others as well. But I think taking a look at objectively what are the capacity of the roads? What are the
capacity of the intersection? Are there some design changes that might need to be made? And then if
there are, based upon the results of that, what are some alternative funding options that might be available
to make some improvements as necessary. I think the thing we have to remember is that whenever we’re
looking at the roads, one of our goals and objectives, and if you follow a lot of the activities we’ve been
doing is working with major roads and looking at expanding capacity. Adding lanes. Widening roads.
We talked tonight about the project to expand and to raise the 101 river crossing. Expand it to 4 lanes
from the current 2 lanes that floods out too frequently. Highway 101 south from Lyman down to Pioneer
Trail next summer is going to be widened from the 2 lane rural to the 4 lane urban so we’re constantly
looking at our streets and roads and looking for ways to make sure that they meet today’s needs as well as
tomorrow’s and I think as we grow those are issues that we need to look at but I think we have to just step
back. Take an objective look at that and then depending on the results of those, move forward. I mean
when traffic. When we look at alternative plans, if the Comprehensive Plan is currently guided for a
particular use, I think one of the things to look at would be for traffic for example, what is the traffic
being generated based upon the current guiding and looking at the number of units that would match that
type of traffic if that’s the type of use that could come in currently. That would be another way to take a
look at some units so, overall I don’t, I don’t throw an apartment development on this site out. Out of
hand. I think for it to work it would have to be sized appropriately and, but I think there’s some more
information. I appreciate the other comments the council members made in terms of direction of what
we’re trying to do here. It’s not, it’s not that I’m disagreeing with people. I think what I’m trying to do is
identify what are some of the key issues that people are raising and then are those issues addressable and
to find out if they’re addressable we need more information. So with that, hopefully that is helpful to the
applicant and staff as well and I would just ask if there are any further comments. No? If not then I will
thank everybody for their involvement in this. Given the hour here, we’re going to take just a really quick
recess and then we will reconvene subject to the call of the Chair. Yep, subject to the call of the Chair
so council, if we could be back in just a couple minutes I’d appreciate it. Thank you.
The City Council took a short recess at this point in the meeting.
Mayor Furlong: I’d like to call the council meeting back to order and let’s move on with the next item on
our agenda. I’m sorry, is there a question Mr. Laufenburger?
Councilman Laufenburger: Laurie.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s go onto the next item on our agenda, item number 5 which is consider an
amendment to Chapter 4 relating to fees.
CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 4 OF CITY CODE CONCERNING FEES.
Greg Sticha: Good evening Mayor, council. At our last meeting of the year, on an annual basis we
review Chapter 4 of the City Code which deals with fees for the city. That could include licenses, permits
or other administrative fees. In this particular case we are looking at amending fees for 2013 and the fees
that we’ll be discussing this evening are utility fees. There are no other fees that are proposed for change
for 2013 aside from utility related fees. The City Council’s gone through an extensive process in terms of
a utility rate study. This past year we actually go through our utility rate study on an annual basis in the
fall of each year with our financial advisors, Ehlers and Associates. The reasons for the utility rate study
are numerous. They help direct the City and city staff and City Council to setting utility rates based on
the infrastructure needs of the city as well as the operating needs of the city and the cash balances within
the utility funds that they operate and serve. Based on that utility rate study, done by Ehlers and
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