PRC 2003 11 25CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
NOVEMBER 25, 2003
Chairman Franks called the meeting to order at 7:35 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Rod Franks, Tom Kelly, Amy O'Shea, Susan Robinson, Glenn
Stolar and Paula Atkins
MEMBERS ABSENT: Jack Spizale
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; and Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director;
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Commissioner Stolar asked to have discussion of the
Seminary Fen under administrative packet, and Commissioner Kelly asked for an update
from staff on the status of the skating rinks.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS. None.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
Ruegemer: May I give a little introduction Chair Franks?
Franks: Sure.
Ruegemer: In our October meeting we had talked about the Halloween parties and some
other special events that we do with the City of Chanhassen. We had talked about the
Chaska Key Club who have volunteered this year and previous years, not only for the
Halloween Party but for the Easter Egg Candy Hunt and we really thought it'd be wise
and a nice event to recognize them at a meeting. ! did get in contact with Kathy
Holtmeier who is the kind of the lead staff liaison for the Key Club through the high
school. Kathy was unable to attend tonight but we have Alison Alaiho and Brit Edstrom
here tonight and they are going to accept our Certificate of Appreciate on behalf of the
Chaska Key Club. To just give you a little background, the Key Club has volunteered for
like ! said, the Halloween Party for a number of years and the Easter Egg Candy Hunt for
a number of years as well. Basically when Corey calls up Kathy, asked for 25-30
volunteers, there's 40 to 50 so Commissioner Stolar, Commissioner Kelly certainly were
witness to that at the Halloween Party. How enthusiastic they were to the event.
Bringing their own costumes. There really was, it's a great resource for us. We couldn't
do it without them so we'd just like to recognize them tonight. Come right on up to the
front.
Franks: Turn around real quick so the rest of the commissioners can see you. Now I
have something to add. ! had lunch with the Kiwanis Club last month in Chaska and
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
there's a group of adults that couldn't say enough about all of you guys at Chaska High
School that are a part of the Key Club, and they love to hear how great you all were at the
Halloween Party. They were like whoa, we've got to find more projects for them. So
they're coming. They said there's a lot and there's going to be more but on behalf of the
City we'd like to present to you, representing the Key Club, a Certificate of Appreciation.
And we'd like to see you guys keep it up and bring up those under classmen up to your
example, and so you've got to turn around here because photo op. Here, you hold the
certificate... Now they tell me to letter you have to coordinate a project yourself.
Key Club Representative: And there's also other requirements like...attend a certain
number of meetings and stuff.
Hoffman: And what grade is everyone in?
Key Club Representative: Well we're juniors but sophomores, juniors and seniors.
Franks: Great, keep it up. Thank you. You're welcome to stay and have cake if you
want. Really.
Hoffman: Or go home and do homework.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Stolar moved, Robinson seconded to approve the
Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated October 21, 2003 as
presented.
AUAR DISCUSSION~ COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR.
Aanenson: Thank you. ! don't think I've met all of you but hopefully you'll know a
little bit more about me by the time ! get done with this. ! don't think ! need to use the
microphone. I'm going to get this set up. This is a small presentation. Okay. What I'll
start with is, this is the document that we're talking about. This Alternative Area Wide
Review. The acronym ! kind of put in the cover letter to use the Alternative Area Wide
Review, and when ! printed out the cover memos the city, if you look at the map behind
you is divided into certain areas that we'd be bringing in and the comprehensive plan that
we did in 1987. We just couldn't take it all in at once as far as provide development. So
we divided it into segments that we could kind of move forward with financially and then
good planning so the first area that we brought in, the 2000 MUSA area, pretty much is
all developed and that would be the area of 5 and 41. Westwood Church, Pulte Homes
and Vasserman Ridge is one that's building on right now. It's kind of those decisions
had to be made at that intersection and what we're working on now is what we fondly
call the 2005 study area, and that would be the area between Lyman and, Lyman going
south all the way down to Pioneer Trail. Going from Audubon back east up roughly to
Powers and I'll show you a map a little bit more in a minute here. What precipitated this
whole discussion was we had a development proposal that came forward and just put
through a slide here. Holy smokes. ! had 3-4 slides in at the same time. Our study area
for 2005. Obviously 212 runs through a segment of this. We've been involved in
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
negotiating right with the engineering department...working through the strategy
involved in that. So a project came in in this area and wanted to move, advance the
development proposal and there's a lot of different ways to, the city could advance a
project to say we want to provide sewer and water, but typically in the past we've waited
for developments to come to the city and then we respond to it, and you've been involved
in that process. So what happened on this is a project that came in and it's called Town
and Country because that's the developer, and they have about 80 acres and it's actually
the Bernardi property, which is on this map would be right adjacent to Audubon. Just
south of the Degler farm which would be right along Lyman. So they came in and
pursued doing a multi family project. Based on the number of dwelling units, it tripped
an environmental study. And that environmental study has some scoping with it which
looks at environmental features, not only storm water, wetland, historical information.
Instead of looking at this piece in a vacuum, we went up to the state agency and said you
know we think it's probably appropriate to look at the whole 600 acres, because part of
our job as planners and part of what Todd does and engineering does, is we can't look at
one piece in a vacuum. You have to look at how all the.., all the pieces of the puzzle fit.
That's our job to make sure that one piece isn't unduly affecting advantageously or to the
detriment of another piece. We have to make sure that everything fits together. So we
went up to the state planning agency which has now been consolidated and said you
know we think it's appropriate to study this whole area. We went back, asked the council
for financing that study the whole 650 acres. So it's a little bit broader in scope as far as
historical elements, so that's what this whole document is about so we're kind of in the
final throws of this whole document. So what we looked at as a part of this too, the good
thing about doing this plan is there were some other things that were spinning out there.
One, 212. We're looking at the plan and saying how does this work into, I'm going to
flip...for a second because I just realize how they got out of order. Show you some of
the maps that were on there. That's not working. I had it all set before I left. That's
okay. This isn't the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me.
Franks: Well you're doing good then.
Aanenson: So what we did is we took the existing land use, which is on here but I won't
go back to that because I'm have a little bit of problem with the slides. We looked at the
existing land uses. Part of the discussion of looking at this was, when we did the
comprehensive plan in 1987, there was a lot of discussion that went in and some of you
were involved when we did the Bluff Creek Overlay District. We looked at how we
acquire all the property along Bluff Creek. There was a couple different approaches.
One that we could use some of the money that went out with the park referendum and try
to apply that, or we decided incrementally as each project came in we may do a density
transfer. Decide how much we wanted to acquire so that was one tool that was already in
place. So that's that area that's in green. We decided that's a community asset to take
that trail all the way down. Actually down towards the fen, and then we also you know,
because we had guided that property already, we didn't want to go back and revisit that,
although there were some concerns from some of the property owners that now might be
a good time to revisit that because there's things that are moving faster in the
marketplace, such as multi family housing and some people would like to have that, but
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
part of the discussion that the City Council has to go through is, you know we can't just
say what's hot right now and move in that direction. You kind of stay for the long haul
and have a diversified tax base so we decided at this point we wouldn't, we would go
with the existing land uses. The other thing that was a component of this is you can also
do a fiscal impact, but there were still a lot of variables. As ! said, 212 was coming on
line. We had the Bluff Creek in place and then the other thing that became kind of a
moving target was the school district. The Planning Commission had put together kind
of a in-house study where we looked at, this is over a year ago. We looked at some,
identified some property that could be used for a high or a middle school, based on the
criteria that they've given us. So the Planning Commission ranked those and it didn't
have any standing and the council looked at it and we just forwarded that information to
the school district. Gave our due diligence, but we came back and said we want to study
this area because we had identified the school. Somewhere in this whole 600 acres, we
didn't say where, we just said if you're looking at a school site, here's a vacant piece of
property here that somewhere in here it could go. So as a part of this we had to consult
and look at, and say based on the acreage, where would be the best place to put that
school basically. If you look in that blue, which is underlying. It could be industrial.
We said that would probably be the best place for the school. So partly with that, you
know and working with Todd, we said if the school was to go in in this area, it also
would be park deficient so we would want some sort of a community park in there. So if
you look at that green, we said the green which would be kind of kitty corner on the other
side of Bluff Creek, because south of the blue is actually a huge ravine, if you're familiar
with the Degler property. There's a big wetland complex so this would be kind of kitty
corner. We would be looking at a community park there that could be used by the school
but also could be programmed by the city. So how would we accomplish that? Well one
of the ways we could accomplish that is development first, as you see projects. We use
the expression, so we would say, we would take the park and trail fees and acquire that as
a park and make that happen. So with the school district would maybe need 35 acres,
which would be the blue. The city would contribute the other 30 acres for the park, and
we can work with the school district. So that was an idea that was floating out there.
Now, because we're doing a study document, we have to show that. We have to disclose
that. That doesn't mean the school's going to buy it. Doesn't mean any of that. It's just
that we're studying on what would be the, because we have to look at traffic patterns and
that's a big component of this is how do we manage the traffic. So that was thrown out
there and that's again one of the sites and that's obviously, one of the sites that the
school's looking at. The other component of that is that yellow that's just immediately to
the east of the school, so if they acquired all the Degler property, there's excess for
development. They wouldn't need all that property so if you're like, most the time when
you buy it's property it's hard to segment a piece of property and say we're only going to
buy part of your property. Most people don't sell it that way. You kind of have to buy
the whole thing so it would be sold back to a developer for residential development. But
the school district looking at that is one of the sites. So we studied that. The other thing,
the biggest component of that besides looking at development, how it would be managed,
was figuring out traffic in the area. So again going back to the timing of what's
happening with 212, we knew we had to have an east/west connection. And this was a
concern of some of the residents in Chaska was tying down...Buttercup. That
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
intersection would go kind of, and again this is not engineered. This is approximately
how we're looking at kind of some topography. That would tie back into the access point
on Powers which would be the interchange on Powers and the new 212. So it'd probably
be the east/west connector, so that kind of provides access to the property. Within that
there may be some other streets. So, with that traffic patterns were developed. How
much signals. So what it does provide for the city, and this is hopefully I can get to the
right.
Hoffman: Boy you're taking a big risk Kate.
Aanenson: I know I am. I just don't know what happened to. I left here with everything
loaded and it got, this is the one I want right here. So what we were trying to do with this
AUAR, and this is what it does and does not do and this is very important because this is
what we had to remind the Planning Commission and the neighbors. It does not advance
the MUSA so what we've got that programmed as 2005 .... document we decide where
the signals could be, because this also helps us prepare a fiscal study. It doesn't say okay,
here we go. You're ready to go. It doesn't approve any development. It doesn't give
Town and Country any credence that they can come back. They still have to come in and
submit a site plan, as well as to this commission to review. It doesn't rezone any
property and it doesn't provide for utility extension because that's the next major
component so if we look at what we're going to do in 2004, we have to go back and study
how we can provide sewer and water and those sort of things to the property, and how
we're going to pay for that and that. What it does do, it gives us a good framework for
development. For example, when Todd was meeting at MnDot today, because we laid
this out and we looked at, we kind of talked about where we want trails. How many ties
are made up, and it's prudent for us to make the decisions that we don't go back and re-
build something as long as MnDot's building 212 at this time, or if we need widened
bridges for trails, for access points. If we need to swing the utilities underneath so we
don't have to go back and rip up the road. So it's good planning. That's what we try to
do. So as it turns out, all the decisions are coming, you know all the points are kind of
landing, so that all worked. It helps us develop mitigation strategies. This is a very
sensitive area. If you walk the property, it's very rolling. There's some beautiful wetland
area, and that's what made it more difficult to look at the school site because it's very
rolling. And if you get to the south, it has a different feel than it does up on the Lyman
side, so it gives us some strategies to provide, what are the natural features, because we
bought trees down in that area. Some of the parts, there's some really nice stands of trees
that we want to work with developments so we kind of identified those. They also
looked at historical, what's there. There might be a possible Indian mound so it puts us
on notice when a development project comes in, we can go back to this document and say
this is on our radar screen. Please investigate further. So it kind of gives us a starting
point. Again it takes a holistic approach so the first person in doesn't get to decide where
the road's going to go. We kind of made those bigger framework issues. And then I
guess I mentioned the phasing with other infrastructures so everybody's working
together. In the past the council for example on 2002 has ordered kind of long term
where the city carries the debt. That's a philosophical discussion the council's kind of go
back and revisit on some of these projects. They might make development carry more of
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
that, so it may change the flavor of how we do development and that's a discussion,
because we haven't done a big project in the last, since this council's done plans so that's
when Pulte was under a different administration so, and that when we did the whole BC-
7, BC-8 project which we fondly call it, which goes up Galpin, back behind Vasserman
Ridge where we've got those nice trails and that big wetland complex with the nice trails
that we've established through there, and so that's kind of the next phase of that. So with
that, we did all this inventory. We had a couple of meetings where the Planning
Commission acted, because this is kind of their bailiwick. They were kind of the host to
take the public comment because this does require public comment. It was sent out, this
document was sent out to everybody that had jurisdictional review. What that technically
means is all the watershed, the Pollution Control Agency, the DNR. Anybody that would
have comments, that would have input on this. The County. And there are also
neighbors that were tracking the project. There was a neighborhood group in Chaska that
were talking that are on our mailing list. There's also the individual property owners that
certainly were stake holders that were following the whole process. So after we sent the
draft document out, then everybody sends their comments back and then we have to
respond to those comments, and this was actually supposed to be on last Monday night
but we have some comments from MnDot specifically regarding widening of some of the
bridges. There's more turn movements than they thought so we're negotiating through
that. Again that helps us with our budgetary, so this is scheduled now for December 8th
for adoption of the mitigation strategies so that's kind of where it sits. So once this gets
adopted with those strategies, again this becomes the working tool that we move forward
with. And as ! indicated, the next thing that we'll do is kind of looking more specifically
at how we're going to pay for some of these things and some of the things the Planning
Commission would like to look at, one of the big things we did learn is noise mitigation
is huge in this area, based on 212 and based on the traffic patterns. So we have to have
greater setbacks or bigger landscaping berms and those sort of things, so traffic we can
manage by the road system, but the noise we're going to have to mitigate, and that was
something we hadn't anticipated. So one of the things that ! think the Planning
Commission will be taking up is we want to do a unified streetscape. Do something
creative so we don't have these big noise walls so we want to... That may be something
that we might want to... show the park commission that too to get some feedback on,
because that will be the big work test. But there's other specific things that they'll be
working on too. One of the things with the whole 212 corridor, there's a unified theme.
You see that in the Eden Prairie bridges and Chaska did the same thing. The green bridge
with the lights, so some of the things that we've talked about is do we want to have some
of those same kind of themes and some of the interchanges so you're kind of identifying
in Chaska. You know they have logo in Eden Prairie and we would have our logo and
some of that stuff too in some of the interchanges so, we don't anticipate anything
happening this next year as far as development, but what we'll be working on is to further
refine this. As I've indicated right now, we're trying to work on. We talked about the
school, the school ends up going somewhere else, we want to pool with those resources
and maybe the character of this park becomes something different. The scale and scope
and that's something that we have to kind of reconcile too. We're waiting for that land.
Hoping that decision gets made in the next month or so but everything, all these decisions
are made.
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Franks: Don't look at me.
Aanenson: I was looking at the cake. Then we want to take that information and that
helps us, so all these decisions. So actually the timing is right because there's...
decisions to help make better decisions. So that's kind of where we are with that whole
process. Any questions on any of that? I've got a lot more technical stuff.
Franks: The dark green on the map. That is the Bluff Creek Overlay watershed.
Aanenson: I'll go back to that slide.
Franks: So that's undevelopable no matter what because that's part of the.
Aanenson: Well let's be clear on how that whole thing works. Now I've got to find
where that slide went.
Stolar: I thought it was 21.
Aanenson: I think it was too, but it didn't come up there. See these are rolling and I
don't know why. It's like adding a new slide or something. It's just a mystery... Well
now I've got 31. ! didn't used to have 31 so we'll see. There should also be a way to get
them all to pop up on here too. It will come back. Bear with me. Let's talk about the
Bluff Creek while I'm looking for this. The Bluff Creek Overlay district says, you have
to transfer the density out in order to accomplish. The watershed district has 75 feet
either side.
Franks: Either side.
Aanenson: Right. What we created was a primary district and we said there's no
development within that primary district, but we have to transfer the density out. Yeah,
we can't do a taking. Do what we've also put in the budget for the, in the storm water
management, is a piece of property that, some industrial is harder to transfer density
because you have the more vertical, and that doesn't meet some of these needs. Or
sometimes the commission or the council may not want to compress the density in that
area .... but we still won't buy it so they're made to come up and say we have to acquire
it, so we put money in the storm water management fund so we can acquire some
property as we negotiate, and each one of these is kind of an ad hoc looking at the critical
features. Maybe it's an area, they can go out and actually survey and we may decide, it's
not as critical as we thought. We kind of put together this.., demonstrate to us and we
just walked another piece of property too. We just walked right next to Sever. I'm
drawing a blank. He's farming it right now. He just sold it.
Franks: Jeurissen.
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Aanenson: Thank you, Mr. Jeurissen's property and it's very interesting. He backs up
onto those other big stand of trees that Mr. Fox owns and it's pinched and there's a big
steep slope and we want to tie that into it, if I can find that map. It's a very interesting
piece of property. While our ordinance, you know he's down in here where the creek
crosses. It's up in this area here. It's pinched by the creek and it's very steep as we come
up through so how do we make that connect to the road. So here we talk about, that's an
interesting place also to maybe do some density transfer, but the ordinance. I'm going to
try 29. I'm getting closer. These are all out of order. This is really weird. See this is the
comprehensive plan. It should be after. There's Town and Country's piece that came in.
That was kind of the catalyst that started the whole process. So let's see.
Hoffman: This whole concept about the overlay district that she talked about the taking
is important because many people get confused. Just because you have a land use map
and it says this is going to be park, doesn't mean you just get it when it comes in for
development. You know it has to be acquired. These people have property rights and
similar in this case here. Just because the city says we think it would be a good idea to
have this primary zone, you still have to compensate that owner for that taking.
Aanenson: Right. Todd brings up a good point so that's why incrementally as we look at
each of these products, now we try to walk a lot of them. Late this fall we just actually
walked, this is the Jeurissen piece that has residential. There's the creek here and there's
a big wetland complex, but this is a very interesting piece. This is that big stand of trees I
was talking about. What this is shaded is just showing areas that maybe critical for
development, but it's very steep right through here so somehow we need to tie into this
road so we were trying to figure out walking with the developer and the owner, which is
the best way to make that happen and make that work. What we were talking about,
there is some development potential here that you know what, it's beautiful. Really
beautiful, that maybe we'd try to cluster it up in this area and just leave that as a nice, that
would kind of be part of this whole creek, and if we make that the park, so you know
again we kind of need to see what happens with the school. If that doesn't happen and
we want to have some type of community park, what is it? Is it active? Is it more
passive? How big should it be? If you look at, if there's industrial there too. You look at
the success that we've had at Lake Susan for that. With that industrial complex. Meeting
different types of needs, so those are still some of the things that we need to be working
on because when the development comes in, we kind of have to have our ducks in a row
to give them some direction. So that's kind of our challenge this next year is to kind of
getting those things jelled. There's a lot of pressure to rezone it. There's a lot of pressure
to develop it. We try to go slow. Make some good decisions. So with that.
Franks: What has been the response?
Aanenson: The main concern I think is traffic. That's what we've heard mostly. People
are concerned because it's bordered by two county roads. That there's a lot of obligation
from the county to step up to Lyman and Todd's aware of that because we also have trail
connections that we want to make sure happen on some of those. Right now if you're
coming down Audubon, anybody that drives down towards Chaska school knows the
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
significance of trying to get through there. What we do know based on the traffic
study...is that we have to have, reduce another creek crossing...by 212 is now on our
current time there so we don't have another creek crossing. So that opens up some of this
area here, but what we do know is traffic will, on this road, will eliminate significantly on
Pioneer and some of those other, the traffic will go down. But meanwhile while all of
this is happening, it's going to be mayhem for a while and that was one of the issues that
came up with 212 is how do we make sure there's internal circulation within the city.
People need to get south to get to school, get to work so we need to make sure that's all
functioning during the whole 212 construction.
Hoffman: Thinking about the traffic, but then also 212's going to be an interesting
phenomena in that whole element if you think about it. Those of us who live north on
Powers, our kids will take Highway 212 to high school. You won't be on Lyman and
Audubon. They'll jump right on Powers onto 212 and get off at the off ramp to the high
school. You won't even be on those roads anymore so 212's going to have a major
impact on traffic patterns in that whole area.
Franks: Todd, thinking that this whole area south of Lyman is park deficient really.
About how much land are you thinking would be appropriate to acquire as a part of this
whole parcel?
Hoffman: Well, if you take a look at the 10 percent formula, so we're talking
approximately 600 acres. So about 60 acres. But there's already wetlands and the
preservation zone in there, so you'd go from 60 on down ! think would be appropriate.
Aanenson: That was, yeah. ! was just going to flip to that. That was one of the slides
that ! did have in here. When we looked at this with the school, they looked at parks.
Open space which is more the Bluff Creek corridor, that preservation area showed about
45.
Franks: So the dark green area is 45.
Aanenson: Correct.
Franks: And that's the primary corridor?
Aanenson: Correct. In a perfect world where you get to transfer all the density and it's
all going to be about 45. So based on the school concept, this was probably 35. That
may be in the top end and that's something we have to go back and assess. That's going
to be your job, the park commission's job to go back and say, which scale should that be
at. ! think probably in looking at, Todd and ! spent some time looking at where's the best
place to kind of get access to and make it an amenity. ! think there was some
concurrence, correct me if I'm wrong Todd, but kind of in that area that we had showed
as far as.
Hoffman: The center.
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Aanenson: The center. You know where you can still access the creek or maybe kind of
blend that into your whole amenity package, and then you've got, just like we do, a view
from the road as you're coming down that east/west connector. You've got that nice
view. Oh, there's some preservation here. Something happening and that was kind of...
Hoffman: The other test is the comprehensive plan identifies 1 acre per 75 residents, and
so you start to take a look at the housing types. Add up the number of bedrooms. The
number of residents and then you start to calculate backwards as well.
Aanenson: And I think one of the other fears that came out when the Planning
Commission was reviewing this is we develop a worst case scenario and there was a lot
of discussion on, we build everything on worst case because none of us may be here in 5,
10 years when some of the future decisions are made so what you do is you base your
traffic patterns on where we're going to put signals, turn lanes, whether we need
additional left or free right, those technical things based on maximum development.
Nobody anticipates that but ultimately we have to assume that someone in the future
might make a different decision, so if you do that you have to go back and it's not always
prudent to kind of go back and buy additional right-of-way. We've all learned from that
sort of thing so you try to make your design as close as you can to assume your worst
case. But that was something that the Planning Commission struggled with too. Why did
we have to do that? Then you have to almost resolve because someone can build to that.
More than likely, we haven't had a lot of that maximize. That was a concern.
Franks: So part of the property is already zoned medium density?
Aanenson: Yeah, a lot of it is. We can go back to that, gosh I've got all kinds of extra
slides in here. I don't know how that happened. We'll go back to this, kind of the overall
guiding map. If you look at the yellow, that's low density. And again what we looked at
with this is interchange. What was on the Chaska side. Chaska on the other side, there's
industrial. If you look along the Audubon side, try to get down towards Buttercup so we
gain that option of industrial or medium density because it kind of creates a transition
between that industrial and that interchange there on 212, as you move towards the creek.
And then we've got low density which is adjacent. On the north side of Lyman you've
got some of those large lots on the north side kind of...to Lake Susan so that was kind of
the justification there. Again, noise along the 212 corridor was an issue. There's
recommended setbacks, spacing, or some of the sound walls for mitigation and that's
something that we'll be working on.
Franks: And what's the purple? I can't read that.
Aanenson: Industrial, I'm sorry.
Franks: That's industrial. And then the light yellow?
Aanenson: Low density.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Franks: That's low density.
Aanenson: And then the kind of the golden is. And the green, that shows up for the park,
that other green that shows the open space. That also is wetland and you don't get
density credit for a wetland. State law says you can't build on it anyway so. I mean
people always want to give that to you as parkland. You can't do anything with it
anyway. I mean that's always, anyways, but if the blue, this is an earlier version actually
would be industrial if that didn't go there and again that's for industrial across the street
on the north side. It's also industrial on the Chaska side so that's why we gave that
transition piece. And it's also sitting up high, flat. Less grading. You can work with the
topography more with the residential... But that doesn't mean at some future council,
some future planning commission may make some tweaking. We anticipate some of that.
There's been talk about maybe some support commercial, but I think we kind of want to
get the bigger framework things in place. Let some of these things layer. Whether it's a
school.., park and get those put in place so we can respond to development. Try to get
ahead of it a little bit.
Franks: When would you expect Town and Country to come forward with.
Aanenson: I suspect that we'll be working on the feasibility. Typically on a project like
Pulte, that took over a year so I anticipate somewhere in 2004. The biggest question for
that is, how do you manage traffic while 212 is under construction because part of the
question that this answers, how much development was one of the questions we produced
is how much development can we manage with this without major infrastructure
improvements. Which is a big question. Does that whole road have to be built? That
east/west road before we can let one development go? Actually it was answered. You
will probably be doing, if they do improvements to Audubon, Town and Country
probably can go through that. Intersection improvements so now everybody stops.
Someone could get in and out with the turn lane. Those sort of improvements if they got
put in place. One of the other things that was talked about if the school went in, or even
industrial on that north side, that street could probably be a private street. Doesn't have
to be a public street. For example if you were going to Pillsbury that's served by a
private drive and it loops around, because there was a question about cut through traffic.
If you wanted to go into intersections, specifically the school district had that concern so
that could be a private drive. Make it kind of into, you wouldn't cut through. There'd be
speed bumps or the like so those are some of the things that were talked about too. But
that's something that we want to study and we'll be approaching the council about that
the first part of the year to kind of study again. Another thing that could happen if the
school went somewhere else and the Degler's decided to farm a few more years and the
development said, you know we said you have to pay to bring all the sewer and water
down and it costs too much. Then we sit there until someone wants to pay that much
money to get the sewer down, because it's a long ways to go down to Town and Country.
The other piece, there's a large piece that Mr. Dorsey owns. It's actually ag preserve.
It's the only piece of property in the city that's ag preserve. It has 7 more years to come
off. So you can't touch that piece of property so everybody else is quite a ways away or
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
needs, the reason that Town and Country is they have access to the street. Audubon. The
rest of them are kind of land locked unless there was more infrastructure improvements.
So right now all the horses are trying to get into the gate. Everybody's getting ready to
charge out and the gate's opening up... yeah so our goal is to keep everybody in the gate
until we've got our plans in place. So this is again the first step in that. And just to be
clear, ! mean it's just another planning tool, and you guys will be referring to this too as
Todd brings it forward and going back and talking about some of the management things
that are in here too ....AUAR. ! just want to point that out. That was a question too.
With that.
Franks: Any other questions? Well great presentation. This is going to be hot for the
commissions.
Aanenson: Yes.
Franks: Victoria's doing the whole AUAR too with their Lundgren's annexation from
Laketown Township and school development as well.
Aanenson: Sure. It's a big chunk.
Robinson: What's going to go on at the December 8th Planning Commission meeting?
Aanenson: The City Council on the 8th.
Robinson: City Council meeting.
Aanenson: Yes. They will be, what they do is they, what this does is it allows all the
jurisdiction comments, all that they adopt is the plan with the mitigation strategies. So
the mitigation strategies, should there be signals at these locations. We'll follow up
storm water...erosion control practices. Whatever those different, the watershed
district's.., permits and that sort of thing so that's what they'll be adopting by resolution.
Franks: Great, thank you Kate.
Aanenson: Yep, thank you for inviting me.
Franks: Come down and see us again. You can stay for cake too.
Aanenson: Maybe I'll have to come back down.
Franks: Alright, you do that.
ESTABLISH 2004 PICNIC RESERVATION FEES.
Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Franks, members of the commission. Good evening again.
Wanted to just get into last year when we established the 2003 group picnic reservation
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
fees, last year we really kind of went back and really kind of dissected and really looked
at additional ways that we could captivate additional revenue. And you break that down
into a two tiered system. Break that down into a Monday through Thursday and a Friday
through Sunday type of breakdown for the system, for the two tier area. The
commission's hope was to really captivate some of that additional revenue on the Friday
through Sunday bookings has always been the most popular in the past. And the
recommendation of the commission was to increase those by 10 percent and kind of work
through the rest of the fees and kind of did some tweaking to bring those a little bit closer
in line on that last year. So what we did, last year, or for this year we did increase it 10
percent. ! did include a request to the commission to kind of include a phone call log so
to speak with that and that is attached to your memo. It's broken down, kind of the days
of the week by month in red are the totals that we received in phone calls. The number of
phone calls that we received per day throughout the course of the summer. And then !
also included a kind of breakdown of kind of what type of picnic reservations were made
during the week and totals. So you note the 88 total paid reservations that we had this
year and that equaled maybe about 88 reservations, about $8,700 in revenue this year so.
With that, we did talk to additional people before ! did make the recommendation last
year as far as kind of a non-resident businesses who would be kind of the highest rate.
The feedback ! got is you know, last year was not real, we said hey, we'll pony up to pay
for it so there wasn't a big outcry of that we're paying too high from last year whether we
did increase it 10 percent for the weekend type of rates so ! think it was a good move last
year so it is staff' s recommendation that the park and rec commission recommend to the
City Council to approve the 2004 group picnic reservations the same as they were in
2003. Same rate which are included also within the packet here.
Franks: Okay, thank you Jerry. Any questions from commissioners?
Stolar: Jerry these calls, these are people inquiring about getting the spaces on a
Saturday, so like if it says 5 there on a Saturday, that means that 5 inquiries to use it that
Saturday?
Ruegemer: Yeah, 5 people had called and say June 14th. 5 separate people had called
inquiring about the space.
Franks: Onthe 14th?
Hoffman: For that day.
Franks: So if it's listed 5 on the 14th, there were 5 people who called wondering for that
day.
Hoffman: For that day.
Franks: Okay.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Ruegemer: Yeah, it was kind of a breakdown from May to September. And that was,
that didn't include ! guess the sites that we use as a department for our playground
programs, safety camp, a lot of those type of things. It's just basically so the picnic
shelters were being used more so than the inquires that we had received.
O'Shea: I have a question. Jerry, what's your procedure after someone calls to follow up
and encourage them to book reservations?
Ruegemer: Well essentially ! guess what my intention is to give the information at that
time. A lot of people are just kicking tires so to speak at that point. They're shopping for
prices, and what we certainly try to do is give people the amenities that we have. The
prices. If they want to look at a picture of it, they can certainly go on our web site. We
have basically this document is on the web site so people can actually look at the actual
picnic shelter, and that sort of thing. My approach is that I'm not here to, I'm not a
higher pressure. Certainly people, ! really want people to take a look at the sites. The
sites are going to sell themselves and ! have a lot of repeat customers with that. I'm not
what do you think, what do you think, what do you think? Let's book it. ! mean you can
feel people out. You can tell who's serious and who isn't serious. A lot of people are
just looking for prices on that but certainly who people are interested will certainly book
it the day of and we do a lot of that as well.
Hoffman: It's pretty easy to tell when you look at the categories that we sell... Lake Ann
and Lake Susan.
Franks: You know is it worth it to charge resident picnic fees on the Lake Ann Lakeside
and Lake Ann Parkview, for the money that we collect? ! mean we're looking at $180 or
so, or 200 bucks or whatever.
Ruegemer: Basically the lake side site is really kind of the kicker for somebody who
wants to do kind of a larger group. That already has the pavilion booked. They'll book
that site as well. They'll kind of have overflow picnic tables and some other things but it
isn't booked that much.
O'Shea: Do you know if those inquiries, how many are residents versus non? ! just
wonder...
Ruegemer: No, ! didn't break that down per phone call. Well the majority of the people
who call are going to ultimately get the resident rate because you may call from Chaska
but you're doing a family reunion and you have a resident who lives in town so, so
they're going to book the site. So we get a high percentage.
Hoffman: Would be categorized as resident.
Ruegemer: ! didn't break it down as far as who was calling at that point.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Franks: I missed it when you talked about revenue but what was the increase in revenue
for 2003 over 2002?
Ruegemer: Actually it went down a little bit because we had less bookings.
O'Shea: But you didn't think that was because of the price increase. Do you have a feel
for why that is? Were other cities down?
Ruegemer: ! don't know what other cities that certainly have a nice other alternative here
in town at Minnewashta with Carver County having a very nice picnic facility. There's
other facilities around us. Maybe part of the economy. The way it was. Companies have
cut back that do picnics. I'm not alarmed. It wasn't that significant a drop. $500 or
$600.
O'Shea: Plus the 10 percent, right?
Franks: Anything else? Alright, any commissioner comments.
Stolar: Are we going to keep tracking the data?
Ruegemer: ! was just going to ask that. Was that helpful for the commission to look at
tonight? Want me to tweak it somehow? Different ways?
Franks: If you could come up with a way to maximize bookings, you know like when
people are calling like, ! mean ! have no idea. I'm just thinking off the top of my head
but you know you get your 10 percent discount if you book for your July or August or
June thing in May, you know what ! mean? To kind of, so when people are calling, you
know you have some more idea of how things are filling up. And then maybe the people
who are calling. ! mean to get people to start thinking ahead so they're not locked into
one specific weekend by the time they call. ! don't know if that would make any
difference.
Ruegemer: ! already do have reservations for 2004 on the books already, but that's you
know a very small percentage. A couple years ago ! tried to, ! did run a kind of early bird
special in the newsletter. ! gave people who called before February 1st or the 15th a 10
percent discount and.
Franks: Okay, didn't do anything?
Ruegemer: No.
Franks: Alright.
Ruegemer: Really when, like late February, early March when people are kind of
thinking about spring, that's when the phone calls start.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Franks: Great.
Stolar: The only thing would be if we, I mean we don't want to put too much of a burden
on your tracking but to the extent we understand whether or not the residents or non-
resident might be something, and these are all just suggestions. ! also think part of what
I'm looking at here is, we have a lot of requests for the weekend, it represents 60
something percent of the requests but less than 60 percent of the bookings were on the
weekend. So whatever might help us understand whether the price makes a difference.
Hoffman: Weekends?
Stolar: Yeah.
Hoffman: It would just be the availability in many those cases.
Stolar: Because it's booked all weekend?
Hoffman: Booked.
Stolar: Booked solid, okay.
Hoffman: So 4 of those calls, or you have 6 calls, 4 of them, just booked.
Stolar: Okay, that's all I've got.
Franks: Jerry nice job getting the reservation.., and following through on this. It's really
helpful. Well seeing if there's no other comments, is there a motion?
Stolar: I move we accept staff recommendation.
Franks: For the 2004?
Stolar; For the 2004 group picnic reservation fees.
Franks: Great. Is there a second?
Kelly: Second.
Stolar moved, Kelly seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission
recommends approval of the 2004 Group Picnic Reservation fees to remain the same
as in 2003. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6
to 0.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS.
2003 HALLOWEEN PARTY EVALUATION.
Ruegemer: Thanks again Chair Franks. This is basically, we did talk about the
Halloween party verbally after the last meeting in October, but just to do just with a
formal Halloween Party evaluation kind of goes through, kind of each component of the
events. The expenses of the event and ! guess future considerations or general comments
that we may have for 2004, so basically it's just kind of an FYI for you tonight to take a
look at and again if there's any additional comments or concerns we certainly can talk
about those tonight to look forward for 2004.
Franks: Just one comment. You know 4 bucks is nice. I'm not sure how much
difference people are going to see paying $5.00 at the door as opposed to $4.00 and then
the ease of collection and change making and such. ! mean you know we'd decrease the
bottom line, take 30 percent off almost of what our deal is.
Ruegemer: ! did a calculation tonight and we would have some additional dollars and !
had the same thought you did Rod.
Franks: And so I'd recommend, we've been at 4 bucks for a number of years now.
Ruegemer: A couple, yeah.
Franks: So maybe for next year it's time to consider raising that to $5.00.
Ruegemer: You bet.
Franks: But other than that, everything looks great.
Stolar: A couple meetings back or last meeting we had the presentation that questioned
whether the Halloween Party would be funded as an attempt to hold back. Where do we
sit with that, or no different?
Hoffman: They didn't touch it.
Stolar: Okay.
Franks: I wouldn't mind seeing, if there's some way to begin to start looking at this as a
self supporting program though. ! think you know whether you can or not, but really to
keep trying to move in that direction.
Hoffman: Well the other way to think about it is, when we businesses to support these,
we're asking for their dollars to help support these special events on behalf of the
residents so the cash we collect is offsetting the 1579. So if you want to put on a
revenue, we can simply balance it out by putting 1579 out of the sponsorship program. !
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
think sponsors start to feel differently about making contributions to a program that is self
supporting. Why would they be making a contribution?
Franks: I know but we'd never be able to supplement Feb Fest self supporting. I mean
so it's, maybe we can focus on those programs that we can start working towards that
direction and then really look at using those dollars. Because I'd hate to start cutting
back. Well now we've got to start scaling back our programs because we're having to
allocate our more scarce resources and then we have programs that people don't want to
go to.
Hoffman: I looked at that, and not sure what you would do because 5 bucks times $2,000
would your top so you would have to cut a thousand out of your programming. That may
be difficult to do and it might not be attractive enough to pay 5 bucks to cut out $1,000 of
entertainment.
Franks: ! guess Todd what ! think is the same kind of attitude we had towards the Rec
Center. Understanding that it was highly unlikely that we were ever going to break even
but that always being the goal we're trying to work for and tweak and manage and every
year we do seem to get a little closer.
Hoffman: Okay.
Franks: Great.
2003 TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY.
Ruegemer: Another FY! for you. We talked about this again last week, or last month at
the commission meeting. This time ! included the flyer kind of with the particulars on it.
We'll definitely be down here in the new City Center Park, and that is coming up
December 6th at 5 zOO and park maintenance will be decorating and getting that area ready
this coming week here so.
Franks: Is the big tree that they're lighting the little teeny pine tree?
Hoffman: It will grow.
Franks: It will. It will grow. This is a growth event.
Hoffman: There will be a lot of lights in that little tree.
Franks: Kind of reminds me of the Charlie Brown. There'll be so many lights it will tip
over.
Hoffman: It may cause accidents at the corner.
Franks: Well Santa won't need to come on the cherry picker.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Ruegemer: We'll have a visit from Santa again so that's a nice event. Then the Chamber
assists with that event. It's a nice partnership.
Hoffman: City Council's excited about it. They announced at their meeting last night on
cable so.
Franks: Alright. We'll move on to the administrative reports.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS: CITY CENTER PARK UPDATE.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Franks, members of the commission. Speaking of City
Center Park, we had our last construction meeting today to start the process of closing out
the construction with L.S. Black and Dana Farber, the architect. And we were so very
blessed with wonderful weather in October and November, right up until last Friday
when Don's Sod Service from Waconia finished up the sod. And so it was remarkable.
We put a final completion date on the contract of one week earlier. They did not meet
that so there are some implications regarding penalties that has to do with that. We
talked about those things today. But those are relatively minor in the overall scope of the
project. The architect is absolutely just mesmerized by the project. They absolutely
think it' s just
the pictures.
on Sunday so
green up, and
that are there.
a wonderful project for their firm and for the city, and it's. They took all
They took lots of pictures on Saturday because there was snow coming in
when we all wake up in the spring, the leaves will come out. The grass will
we'll put our final touches on the park and then start to program the events
Franks: You reminded that the park looks as good as it does because we rejected all of
their initial ideas right.
Hoffman: ! reminded them. And the Chamber is coming up on December 1st to view the
park with their committee for the farmers market that they're attempting to implement on
the site. So we're just so happy to have it done.
Franks: There's not going to be a problem with the sod?
Hoffman: No, oh no. Perfect time. Yeah, absolutely. No problems at all. It's better
than putting it down in the heat of July by a long shot.
Franks: Great. Will the fountain be ready to go in springtime?
Hoffman: Fountain's tested twice and will be ready to go. There's just a few things to,
we'll work out with the nozzles, the jets and the height but those are all adjustable and
then the only other issue we have to deal with is the rust in the Chanhassen water. So
we'll treat the water so it doesn't turn to rust out there on our benches.
(There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.)
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Hoffman: ... City Council had kind of a mixed opinions on whether to flood all of the
rinks or just the 4 locations but when they came down to their final decision they chose to
support the commission's recommendation to flood only the 4 sites, and then place that
on the consent agenda on December 8th. Councilman Labatt was absent which may have
had some implications in the vote so they wanted to give Councilman Labatt a chance to
go ahead and voice his opinion on the 8th when that's placed on the consent agenda.
Franks: What were the concerns about?
Hoffman: No concerns. Just some thought we should flood all of them. Others, the
majority thought no, we should just flood the 4 and support the commission's
recommendation. Steve Labatt was not present. ! think as many of us know is a hockey
nut, he may have been supporting all of the locations but we don't know that for sure.
Franks: Do you want to go ahead and give a report on the seminary fen acquisition?
Hoffman: First, prior to moving on that I sure will. One of the things, before I forget is
the council invited, they talked about to the city manager is that when we have a
commission representative at the council, they would like to invite you to the work
session. And ! know sometimes that may not always be a workable schedule for
commission members. Those start at 5:00-5:30, and but that's where some good
conversation takes place on these items that are on the work session schedule so if there
are park and rec related items, when we mail you the agenda we will make a note, please
attend work session if available. The seminary, other than the memo that I, the letter
from, e-mail correspondence from Lori Haak, our Water Resource Coordinator to the
City Manager, ! don't have any further update. The council talked about this last night a
little bit in their capital planning. There's $300,000 for acquisition of any sorts in the
SWMP fund. Surface Water Management Program. So that's what it's called. Surface
Water Management Program so there is $300,000 allocated. Some council talked about
reducing or eliminating that. Others thought no, let's leave it in there and see what
projects do come up in the 2004 time period so council has not committed acquisition
dollars to Seminary fen. The Friends of the Minnesota River Valley are moving forward
with that acquisition. The DNR is moving forward with that acquisition and so they're
attempting to make it happen. But the council has not voiced it's recommendation either
way.
Stolar: What would be the situation, those groups move forward and they're about, what
did we say, about $500,000 short at this point?
Hoffman: Based on the information in that memo.
Stolar: Okay. Of which the $300,000 portions of that could be used there, if that's
what's chosen to be done, so even if they used all of it, which wouldn't be prudent ! don't
think, ! don't know what else we have out there to do. They'd still be short. What are
the plans, do you know of any of the group's to make up the difference?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Hoffman: No ! don't.
Stolar: Might that be something that'd be worth inviting them here? And I don't know
prior experience, maybe Rod or Tom can say but has this commission been supportive of
trying to get that purchase through?
Franks: Well we've had Seminary fen acquisition high on the agenda for a long time.
Before most people. ! mean when was that that we went down there and walked it. Even
that was years and years and years ago.
Hoffman: I'm sure a representative would be willing to come to your December meeting
to talk about it.
Stolar: Or for January. ! don't know.
Hoffman: Well they're on the fast track.
Stolar: I'd be interested but I don't know if other commissioners would be.
Franks: ! think it's good, at least for them to know that part of the government here is
very supportive of their efforts. For sure.
Stolar: Or if there's any background that could be sent to us, even if it's in the mail with
some of the background.
Hoffman: Oh, we'll provide a report, sure. Is that something the commission would like
to see?
Franks: Looks like yes in consensus there so see if somebody wants to come out.
Hoffman: Oh, sure. Somebody.
Franks: Great. Well we'll move on to the administrative packet. Or committee reports.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Franks: And we have one letter in the correspondence section, administrative packet, and
! for one was very glad to see it. Thanks. You know ! think it's going to mean a lot for
this, for Thomas that he's just getting some recognition for a great project. It was a good
idea. It was worthwhile in the community and it turned out nice so.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - November 25, 2003
Hoffman: And he had the toughest weather of the month. Freezing rain.
Franks: That round house is a story. Great. Well if there's no other business, is there a
motion to adjourn? And then we'll move on to cake.
Stolar moved, Robinson seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and
the motion carried. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
22